Whistleblower suspended by UP govt; to move HC against order

Times of India: Meerut: Friday, 25 September 2015.

After being pulled up by the Allahabad high court that sought audit reports of all the development works worth hundreds of crores of rupees undertaken by Meerut Municipal Corporation (MMC), the UP government suspended the civic body's chief auditor who had earlier complained to the HC that he was not being provided with the files for audit.

Sachchidanand Tripathi received the order of suspension signed by Sudhir Singh Chauhan, joint secretary, urban development ministry. Tripathi told TOI on Thursday that he will move the HC against the order. Negligence in work was sighted as the primary reason for his suspension.

Tripathi had highlighted several discrepancies in the functioning of the civic agency, including misappropriation of funds by MMC authorities. Even in 2012, the high court had asked the MMC authorities to provide him files for audit purposes after he filed a plea in HC in this regard.

Later, hearing a PIL, the HC directed the MMC officials to produce audit reports of all development works carried out by the civic body in the past five years.

Tripathi, said, "Whether it was the matter related to purchase of 3,191 metric tonnes slaked lime or a sample report produced by the engineering department before issuing work order, I raised objections on every file as they were full of irregularities and indicated misappropriation of funds. Since 2010 when I joined MMC, after a few months, files had stopped coming to me for audit."

On September 15, the Allahabad high court had threatened MMC authorities of a CAG probe if all audit reports of the past five years were not submitted to the court.

The court was hearing a PIL filed by RTI activist Lokesh Khurana. Khurana had filed the RTI after Tripathi highlighted rampant corruption in MMC.

According to a civic body official who did not wish to be quoted, hundreds of crores of rupees were allocated to MMC by state urban development ministry and central government under various development schemes and also for infrastructure projects under 13th finance commission.

Tripathi said, "On September 29, the state government has to reply to the HC order as to why I was not given the files and other documents for audit purpose, which are mandatory under the Nagar Nigam Act. Now, I will approach the HC again against my suspension order. How these people make mockery of the rules could be understood by the fact that my suspension order has no the date of issuance. The issuing authority, who should ideally be secretary, is also not there; instead it has been signed by the joint secretary."