HC to hear plea seeking CBI probe into misappropriation of funds for migrants on June 16
New Delhi, June 8 (IANS) : The Delhi High Court will on June 16 hear a plea seeking Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) probe in “massive misappropriation” of the Rs 3,200 crore funds meant for migrants and construction workers in the national capital.
When the matter came up for hearing before a single-judge bench of Justice V Kameshwar Rao, he listed it for hearing by a division bench of the high court on June 16.
The petition, filed by an NGO named PT Deendayal Upadhyay Smriti Sansthan, through advocates R Balaji and Yogesh Pachauri, sought directions to the Delhi government to disburse the funds to genuine construction workers entitled to receive the same.
The plea claimed that there was a very deep rooted nexus between the trade unions and outsourced board employees to carry out large scale illegal registration of non construction workers as construction workers by charging huge amounts with a condition that they should be paid 40-50 per cent of the benefit amount.
“According to some government officials, more than 80 per cent registration have been carried out of non construction workers and most of these beneficiaries have their own houses in Delhi and are not genuine construction workers,” the plea said.
It further stated that many of these bogus construction workers are in-fact owning apartments/houses in Delhi. However, these facts can be verified from the address mentioned in the sanctioned orders issued by the office of the Secretary Board.
“It has been very shocking that the authorities/ Unions have registered lakhs of non-construction workers (some of them rickshaw pullers, hawkers, factory workers, tailors, house wives etc.) as construction workers solely to illegally pilfer the cess funds which is exclusively collected for the welfare of genuine construction workers,” the petitioner told the court.
The plea sought directions to an independent investigating agency like the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate the role of the respondent, Delhi government and Delhi Building and Other Construction Workers’ Welfare Board and to find out how cess funds, which has been constituted exclusively for construction workers, has been disbursed to non-construction workers for several years.
The plea also sought directions to restrain the authority concerned from releasing cess funds to those who are not entitled to receive the same.
–IANS
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