CHANDIGARH: Months after exposing Congress chief Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra 's dubious land deals, Haryana IAS officer Ashok Khemka is in the line of fire from the state government.

The Bhupinder Singh Hooda government has asked the state vigilance bureau to initiate a probe against Khemka for alleged irregularities in the purchase of 10,000 quintal moong (green gram) during the officer's tenure as managing director in Haryana Seed Development Corporation (HSDC).

Director general of state vigilance bureau Parminder Rai told TOI on Friday that the bureau will conduct a regular inquiry into the complaint against Khemka after receiving orders from the state government recently. "We would initiate the probe soon," Rai added.

Khemka had joined HSDC on October 15, 2012, hours after he cancelled the mutation of a land deal between Vadra and DLF during his tenure in land consolidation department. In HSDC, Khemka had stopped the system of supplying seeds to the corporation sourced from private firms. He also minimized the role of brokering firms and set the condition that the seeds supplied must be produced and certified in the name of the supplier agency.

In a complaint filed by Panipat-based seed trader Jagbir Singh in April, it was alleged that there was no transparency in the purchase of moong seed worth Rs 10 crore.

The complaint said the supply order was not given to National Cooperative Consumers' Federation (NCCF) and National Agriculture Cooperative Marketing Federation (NAFED) which had quoted Rs 8,400 per quintal as the rate to supply the seeds.

HSDC gave the supply order to a private firm at the rate of 8,100 per quintal. The complainant alleged that this supply order was given to a private firm as it had given a huge bribe to Khemka. He further alleged that proper procedure was not followed to give the tender to the private firm.

In his report to the government, principal secretary (agriculture) Roshan Lal Saini claimed that the tender process adopted by Khemka was not transparent.

However, in his comments to the government, Khemka termed the allegations baseless. He said the HSDC succeeded in saving Rs 30 lakh by purchasing the seed at the rate of Rs 8,100 per quintal in comparison to Rs 8,400 quoted by NAFED. "The purpose of the present complaint is to harass me…The corrupt should not be allowed to walk away with the last laugh," he added.

Khemka on Friday told TOI, "The authorities in government should act fairly and take action against the real culprits."

Last month, Haryana police had given a clean chit to Khemka in an abetment to suicide case. This complaint was lodged days after Khemka cancelled the mutation of Vadra-DLF land deal in October 2012. In this case, a Panchkula resident, Nitin Poswal, had complained against Khemka alleging that the IAS officer had instigated his father Jaswant Singh, who was sacked from Haryana Housing Board, to commit suicide in 2007.

The state government had transferred Khemka on April 4 to state archives department.

