Inquiry was ordered: UP chief secy

On August 12,Chief Minister Mayawati had asked Chief Secretary Gupta,through a letter sent by present State Industrial Development Commissioner V N Garg,to explain why action against the accused government officials had been delayed for nearly two years when she had taken a decision to cancel the allotments on July 31,2007.

On August 11 this year,15 officers were placed under suspension and an FIR was lodged against them while action was also ordered against a retired IAS officer.

Sources said the Chief Secretary stated that Balwinder Kumar submitted two reports in September 2007. He observed that it was a case of “collective responsibility” where a number of officials were involved in the decision-making process.

Kumar recommended that an inquiry should be conducted by a specific investigation agency for fixing the responsibility of individual officials,the Chief Secretary has stated.

On this,A K Srivastava, the then Principal Secretary,Industry,had recommended that the inquiry should be entrusted to Meerut Divisional Commissioner Devendra Chaudhary for carrying out an independent probe and fix responsibility of each official.

Gupta, the then Industrial Development Commissioner,approved the proposal and in October 2007,the Divisional Commissioner of Meerut was directed to conduct an inquiry and submit a report within 15 days.

Chaudhary,however, submitted his report in April 2008. By then,Atul Gupta had been posted as the Chief Secretary.