Ejaz Kaiser By

Express News Service

RAIPUR: Chhattisgarh Lokayukta has ordered to take action against three officials including a retired IAS officer for their “involvement and collusion” in the irregularities and corruption case in the state Textbook Corporation registered around seven years ago.

The chief Lokayukta Justice T P Sharma on a complaint registered by the journalist Narayan Sharma directed the secretary, school education department, for an action against the officials. The probe in the same case, simultaneously registered with the state Economic Offence Wing (EOW) by Sharma, has also

been completed.

“The corruption is to the tune of several crores. I am also moving the high court as despite the investigation been accomplished in 2017 and the state government had earlier granted approval to

prosecute the three senior officials, there has been no action to even suspend them or initiation of any departmental inquiry against them. It took seven years fighting the case of corruption till Lokayukta recommended action”, asserted Sharma.

The case has been registered against the then managing director of the Corporation Joseph Minj (ex-IAS officer), former general manager Subhash Mishra and deputy manager (printing) Sanjay Pillay under the IPC section 420 (cheating and dishonesty), 120 B (conspiracy) section 13 (1) D of the prevention of Corruption Act 1988.

“The officials have blatantly violated the Chhattisgarh Store Purchase Rules 2002. There was tender process but they didn’t follow the given procedure and instead of allotting the work to L1 they gave

the work order to their two favourite firms ranked at 14 and 15, citing urgency and quality which was later

compromised. The documents were fabricated and the rates amended several times, consequently leading to huge loss of several crores to the Chhattisgarh Textbook Corporation”, the scribe affirmed.

The chief Lokayukta has asked the school education secretary to furnish information about the action taken or the proposed move against the three “guilty” officials within three months. Sharma had also produced documents along with his written complaint accusing the former education minister Brijmohan

Agrawal of “involved” in the given case.