Speaker Alamgir Alam

Ranchi, Sept. 21: Giving up hope, the five-member panel probing into the irregularities in Assembly appointments, exposed a year ago during a sting operation, has recommended a fresh inquiry by a government agency.

JD(U) legislator Radha Krishna Kishore, the head of the committee constituted by Speaker Alamgir Alam, blamed non-co-operation of the Assembly secretariat officials for the panel’s failure in finding the truth.

The panel, comprising Sukhdeo Bhagat (Congress), Chittaranjan Yadav (RJD), Ravindra Nath Mahto (JMM) and Ramchandra Ram (RJD) besides Kishore, was studying a CD submitted by the BJP legislator Sarayu Roy and half-a-dozen letters from various sources for its probe.

“We needed to make a comparative study of the staff strength of the Assembly in other states in order to assess the requirement for the 81-member House in the state. We wanted officers, trusted with the recruitment job, to be removed for a partial inquiry. But we were told that we cannot take such steps,” the committee report stated.

“We wanted to check a letter that the governor had referred to while speaking with the Speaker. We were told by the secretariat officials that the letter was beyond their jurisdiction and as such cannot be provided,” a panel member added. According to a committee member, the House officials who figured in the CD admitted that the conversation had taken place, but added that they were talking in their personal capacity.

The Speaker told The Telegraph that the committee report took him by surprise. “I had trusted the committee to probe into the matter and identify the officials in it. Instead of doing that the committee stretched its brief and wanted information about appointments made since 2000,” he said. “I have not yet decided the future course of action, but it is not right to invite an outside agency to probe into the House affairs,” he maintained.

Roy, however, is not satisfied with the Speaker’s stand. “We have demanded the Speaker to lay the report before the House,” he said. “We will wait till tomorrow for the Speaker to act and then take the protest path,” he added.

The job scam in the House had hit the headlines in September last year after Roy released a CD in which a few Assembly workers were seen haggling with members before giving placements. The Speaker, after many hullabaloos, set up a panel to unravel the truth.