J&K: `5Kcr fraud in housing body?
The Jammu and Kashmir State Accountability Commission (SAC) has launched a probe into an alleged fraud of `5,000 crores detected in the State Cooperative Housing Corporation and issued notices to the concerned minister and two senior officials. The complaint alleging bungling and embezzlement in the corporation has been filed by two persons, namely Farooq Ahmed Dar and Sunil Sharma, against the minister for cooperatives, Manohar Lal Sharma, commissioner secretary cooperative department, Abdul Hamid Wani, and registrar cooperatives Muhammad Abbas. It says that the minister had conducted an inquiry into complaints of irregularities in the corporation and found bungling and embezzlements worth `5,000 crores involving former and present managing directors of the corporation, namely Brij Mohan Sharma and Bharat Bushan Sharma. As has been claimed the two officials in connivance of an assistant registrar cooperative department Muhammad Shaffi Dar misappropriated the funds. “But no action was taken against them by the minister concerned as he himself got bribe and a plot from the managing director of the corporation,” the plaintiff have alleged.
They alleged Mr Dar, who was under suspension for the last five years, was only reinstated by the registrar at the behest of minister. “In Jammu Central Cooperative Bank Limited alone there is misappropriation of `259 crore and this amount has been looted by the minister, commissioner secretary and registrar cooperative.”
After studying the complaint, SAC comprising chairperson Justice Y.P. Nargotra and Justice Hakim Imtiyaz Hussain observed, “A case has already been registered with the Vigilance Organization regarding some of the allegations contained in the complaint”. They added, “Prima facie it appears that gross irregularities have been committed by the officers of the corporation and the minister for cooperative has failed to exercise effective control over the functioning of the corporation.”
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