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Ex-Governor�s role under scanner

By R Dutta Choudhury

GUWAHATI, Dec 12 � The role of former Governor of Assam Lt Gen (Retd) Ajai Singh in the financial scam in North Cachar Hills Autonomous Council has come under scanner as the records recovered during investigations by different agencies proved that he had given orders for payments directly and in one case he violated the financial rules by issuing an instruction directly to a bank manager.

In one of the letters written by the Additional Secretary to the Governor, a bank manager was instructed to honour four drafts and official sources pointed out that there was no reason for the Governor to get involved in such a case and issue orders directly to a bank.

In the letter, written by S Jagannathan, Additional Secretary to the Governor of Assam, to the Branch Manager of the ICICI Bank, Gurgaon, on April 3, 2008, the bank was instructed to honour four drafts and it was stated that a clerical error took place while issuing the drafts.

In the letter, the Governor�s Additional Secretary said that draft numbers 327695 to 327698 for an amount of Rs 20 lakh were drawn in favour of �Poojes Kamaljit� payable at Guwahati. The same were originally intended for payment in favour of �Pooja Kamaljit� instead and the same should be treated as clerical error.

The letter further said that the clarification was issued in response to the communication received from Pooja Kamaljit and as per the direction of the Governor of Assam.

Official sources said that the possibility of a clerical error while preparing the draft is very much possible. But as per financial norms, in such a case, the rule is to cancel the drafts made wrongly and to issue fresh correct drafts. There was no reason for the Governor to issue orders directly to the manager of a bank branch to honour such drafts, sources pointed out.

Meanwhile, the role of the former Governor also came under scanner due to various other irregularities and during the special audit of the accounts of the Autonomous Council, the office of the Accountant General also found that there have been instances of the Governor issuing orders directly for payments to contractors.

The special audit report of the AG also pointed out that expenditures amounting to around Rs 8 crore for special projects under the Agriculture Department of the Council could not be audited as the records relating to the projects were taken away by the Additional Secretary to the Governor. Those, along with some other records, were retained by the Governor�s secretariat and the same could not be audited during the special audit carried out by the office of the AG as per the instructions of the Central and State Governments and no one is sure where the money was spent.

It is also alleged that RH Khan, one of the main accused in the financial scam, was allowed to use the helicopter allotted for the use of the Governor on several occasions and �security threat� was cited as the reason for the same.

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