Proposal for dept action against retd DDA officials sent to LG

Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has informed a Delhi court that it has referred to Lieutenant Governor a proposal for departmental action against two retired officials for gross negligence of duty on their part in a 1996 housing scheme.
In a status report filed before the court, DDA's director of vigilance said departmental action against Gurdas, an Upper Division Clerk (dealing assistant-SFS, Housing accounts in DDA), who was sentenced to four years in jail earlier in the housing scam, has been finalised.
"It is intimated that departmental action against Gurdas has been finalised and the proposal for departmental action against the other officials V P Anand and S K Kaushik, who already stand retired, has already been referred to the LG, Delhi, who is the Chairman of DDA, in terms of the Gazette Notification dated November 1, 2007, which provides that the Disciplinary Authority to initiate action against retired employees is only the Chairman DDA/LG, Delhi," Special CBI Judge M K Nagpal noted in his order.

The status report was filed in pursuance to court's direction last November to DDA vice chairman to initiate departmental action against certain officials.
The court had last year sentenced Gurdas and Raju Agarwal, a property dealer, to four and five years jail respectively. It had acquitted V P Anand, accounts officer of SFS-DDA, S K Kaushik, assistant accounts officer, and Gurnam Chand, assistant SFS Housing, DDA, as the CBI failed to prove their roles.
It also noted that its order directing initiation of disciplinary proceedings against accused Kaushik has already been stayed by the Delhi High Court.

DDA filed another status report along with auditors reports and said certain discrepancies pointed out in the report of the special audit were still being looked into.

The court had earlier decided the case of a scam in DDA's 1996 housing scheme for allotment of flats under Self Financing Scheme (SFS) in which possession letters of 12 DDA flats at Kondli Gharoli here had been given to allottees on forged bank challans, without the actual payment being made causing a loss of over Rs 1.06 crore to DDA.
As per CBI, Gurnam was the custodian of files of SFS flats. In 1997, Raju purchased allotment papers from successful allottees directly or through agents as the allottees were not in a position to make the complete payment. He then fabricated bank challans showing the cost of flats have been deposited. On the basis of forged documents, possession letters of 12 flats were issued to him.

The fraud had come to light when purchasers of some flats found that the original allottees had not deposited the cost towards the flat.