The Municipal Corporation of Delhi on Wednesday informed the Delhi High Court that it had initiated a vigilance inquiry into the ghost employees case to fix responsibility of higher officials of the civic body in the racket.
Counsel for the MCD submitted before a Division Bench of the Court comprising Justice A. K. Sikri and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw that the civic body had set up a committee to probe the matter. Thereupon, the Bench said the inquiry would be conducted under the supervision of MCD's Chief Vigilance Officer. It also directed the civic body to submit a status report on the inquiry within four weeks.
The Bench was hearing a public interest litigation by a non-government organisation alleging existence of thousands of ghost employees on MCD payrolls who had been drawing salaries for the past several years.
The petitioner, Jagrook Welfare Society, had moved the Court when the civic body failed to take action on its complaint against existence of as many as 22,000 ghost employees.
1,702 ghost workers so far
Meanwhile, counsel for the Delhi Police, Najmi Waziri, submitted that the investigating officer had so far identified 1,702 ghost employees during their door-to-door survey and the police had registered six FIRs in the matter.
He also informed the Court that the police had sought details of those senior MCD officers who were allegedly involved in the racket so that their prosecution could be taken up.
The Court had last month asked the police to go up the ladder and initiate action against the liable senior officials of the civic body for siphoning off public funds. It had observed that “this (existence of ghost employees) could not have happened without their connivance”.
It had also asked the civic body to take disciplinary action against the responsible senior officials.
The petitioner alleged that it seemed that vested interests involved in the scam were putting pressure on the government agencies concerned to hush up the matter.
