Agartala:Two Public Interest Litigations (PIL) are filed today in High Court of Tripura demanding CBI probe into multi-crore corruptions of centrally sponsored schemes, surfaced recently in the state.
The first PIL accusing Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, Chief Secretary and Director General of Police of not taking any action against the criminals was submitted to the High Court by senior advocate Arun Chandra Bhowmik in the morning.
He demanded an inquiry into the scams either by CBI or any other central crime investigation agency under the direct monitoring of High Court.
Mr Bhowmik alleged that only a few of the corruption cases of left front government had come to light and many of such cases had been managed by the administration due to the direct influence of the Chief Minister.
“Only Rs 50 Cr of MGNREGA scam of Bishalgarh, Rs 27 Cr of National Health Mission and Rs 5 Cr of Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan have reached public and in the past few years ruling CPI(M) and corrupt officers have looted more than Rs 500 cr given to the state under various central schemes, despite serious audit objections the government did not do anything,” he alleged.
Besides, CBI probe into the scam Mr Bhowmik however, demanded special auditing of the accounts by a special team of auditors of CAG in all 58 rural development blocks, centrally aided projects implemented in last five years. Referring to Bishalgarh MGNREGA scam he pointed out that the total amount of corruption has not yet been ascertained in the block.
The Chief Minister himself kept the file with him for four months without any action and redistributed the portfolio after recommendation of the then finance minister Badal Choudhury to lodge an FIR against BDO Bishalgarh Bimal Chakraborty on May 19.
Bimal is close to Mr Sarkar and his brothers are also powerful. One of his brothers is CPI(M)’s youth wing DYFI State Secretary; another is a Tripura Police Service officer and eldest one Shyamal Chakraborty, a Chemistry teacher of Kolkata and a powerful CPI-M leader of West Bengal.
As a result administration is very much soft towards Bimal and in police remand Bimal was given VIP treatment and all efforts were made from the police to kill the evidences of the case rather wanted to be proved as the case is not embezzlement, only irresponsibility to implement the schemes, Mr Bhowmik added.
In the afternoon, Tripura Pradesh Congress committee had also submitted another PIL, seeking CBI probe into Bishalgarh scam, alleging that Chief Minister Manik Sarkar himself was involved in the case.
“Since it is the defalcation of central govt fund and entire state machinery and ruling party is involved in the case, they are working together to destroy all the evidences of corruption and it needs immediate intervention of CBI to unearth the truth,” the party demanded in the High Court. (UNI)