New Delhi: A non-bailable warrant was today issued against Anti-Corruption Branch chief Mukesh Kumar Meena by a Commission of Inquiry appointed by AAP government to probe multi-crore CNG fitness scam and a 30 per cent cut in his salary ordered for not responding to summons to appear before it and furnish details of the case.
The Commission of Inquiry (CoI), whose appointment was declared “invalid” by Union Home Ministry last month, directed the Delhi Police to execute the NBW and apprise it of action taken by September 15.
The Commission also issued direction to “attach” 30 per cent of Meena's salary till the time the records pertaining to the inquiry into the CNG fitness scam conducted by the ACB are presented to the probe panel.
Meena appointed by Lt Governor Najeeb Jung has also probed the CNG fitness scam and filed a charge sheet in court last week.
The Commission said Meena “deliberately failed to produce the records pertaining to its inquiry”.
Meena did not respond to phone calls and text messages. In August, the AAP government had appointed Justice (Retd) S N Agarwal, a former judge of Delhi and Madhya Pradesh High Courts, to head the one-man probe panel, set up under Commission of Inquiry Act, 1952 to probe the scam in which a number of officials of previous Sheila Dikshit government were under the scanner.
The AAP has been accusing the Lt Governor of trying to shield the officers found guilty by a CBI probe into the scam which was detected by Delhi Government's Anti-Corruption Branch in 2012.
The Commission has asked the Station House Officer Civil Lines Police Station to execute the NBW by September 15 and in case he fails to execute it, then apprise the Commission the reasons behind it.
According to a senior officer, the Commission has powers of a civil court and can issue summons and non bailable arrest warrants.
On September 3, the Commission had issued summons to Meena to appear before it as he had passed an order that “no information pertaining to the case will be shared with the Commission”.
After formation of Commission of Inquiry by the AAP government, Meena, also Joint Commissioner of Delhi Police had said, he “will not allow any interference in the ongoing investigation”.
The Union Home Ministry had called setting up of Commission by the Delhi government as “illegal”. “The MHA terms the commission of inquiry constituted by the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) as legally invalid and void ab initio,” it had said.
The CNG fitness scam surfaced in 2012 when ACB found that the Delhi government had lost over Rs 100 crore by awarding the contract to operate and maintain certification of CNG vehicles at the transport authority in Burari to ESP India Pvt Ltd instead of ESP USA.
The charge sheet was filed before Special Judge Poonam Chaudhry in the case in which several persons were arrested in 2013 for allegedly siphoning off crores of rupees in conducting fitness tests of commercial vehicles in the national capital in connivance with the transport department.
In June, when the AAP government had directed ACB to reopen the case, the LG's office, rejecting crticism against him, had said the Justice Mudgal committee which had probed the case found no mala fide on the part of any government functionary.
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