‘Govt not co-operating with probe’

The directions were passed during the hearing of a PIL filed by Advocate H C Arora on the basis of a report published by The Indian Express.

Following the court’s April 30 orders,Chandigarh Police DSP (Central) Ashish Kapoor — the investigating officer in the case — on Tuesday submitted a short status report. He claimed that he had sent a letter on May 10 to Under Secretary (Personnel) Ravi Kiran for information regarding some queries,but despite a reminder sent on May 27,the reply is still awaited. The information sought by Kapoor included — how did the Secretariat come to know about the files having gone missing and from whom were nine files allegedly recovered.

Kapoor added that Senior Assistant (PCS branch) Harjeet Singh and Senior Assistant (IAS branch) Ajay Kumar have in their statements to him said they had sent 21 and 14 files respectively to under secretary Yog Raj Sharma for further orders,but he did not pay any heed to their request to clear those files.

Though Kapoor has taken taken into account movement of registers by way of seizing memos,but those documents do not have signatures of file recipients. According to Deputy Secretary (Personnel) Som Nath,as per procedure,the files used to come directly to the under secretary.

Taking serious note of the grievance raised by Kapoor,the court on Tuesday directed Ravi Kiran to immediately reply to the probe officer’s queries,failing which,she will have to appear before the court on July 5. The court also asked Kapoor to write directly to the secretary (Personnel) for getting the requisite information.

Meanwhile,with permission of the high court,petitioner H C Arora,passed on an anonymous letter received by him to the counsel for the UT Police. Arora said the letter contained certain clues to the modus operandi regarding the misplacement of files and,therefore,the investigating officer may look into it.

Yog Raj Sharma,in a separate reply,had stated that he is being made a “sacrificial lamb” in the case. He has contended that IAS and PCS officers concerned should have been impleaded as respondents,as they were interested in the files being lost.