Purchases worth crores without tenders;Three former IT Deptt officers, others land in SVO trap

By admin On Feb 1, 2017

STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: The State Vigilance Organisation has booked former Additional Chief Executive Officer, CAO and Financial Advisor, Director Finance, and other officers/officials of Information Technology (IT) Department/Jammu and Kashmir e-Governance Agency (JaKeGA) for procuring Hardware/Software items and other goods from different vendors/suppliers without following the financial code/tendering process for their pecuniary benefits and huge loss to the state exchequer worth corer of rupees.
FIR 02/2017 under sections 5(1)(d) read with 5(2) J&K P.C. Act, Svt. 2006 and 120-B RPC has been registered against Dara Singh the then system Executive/Additional Chief Executive Officer, Khem Raj, the CAO and Financial Advisor, Satnam Singh Director Finance, Farooq Ahmad the then Senior Assistant/Cashier and other officers/ officials of IT Department /JAKEGA.
The case has been registered on the complaint of General Administration Department vide No. GAD (Vig) 49-RDA/2016 dated June 30, 2016 and Special Audit Report No. ITD/Gen/159/2004-part-II dated August 10, 2016 wherein it has been stated that from the period 2011 to 2015 the IT Department /JAKEGA has made procurements of Hardware/Software items and other goods from different vendors/suppliers without following the financial code/tendering process.
During verification conducted by Vigilance, it was revealed that the Department of Information Technology did not bother to adopt the tendering mode for making procurements as mentioned above and also most of such procurements have been made without the approval of competent authority/Governing body and without adopting, the procedure laid down for such procurements.
The SVO verification further revealed that the officers/officials of Information Technology Department have for their pecuniary benefits also made undue payments through cheques raised by illegal means and have also resorted to tampering of records etc.
By acting in this manner, these accused officers in league with each other with the beneficiary vendors/ suppliers and others by abusing their official positions and have illegally conferred undue pecuniary advantage upon themselves and to the blue eyed beneficiary suppliers/vendors thereby causing huge loss to the state exchequer.