Guwahati, Nov. 23: The CBI today filed chargesheets against 16 persons, including two politicians, in three cases of corruption in North Cachar Hills (now Dima Hasao) district of Assam.
The names of two former chief executive members of North Cachar Hills Autonomous Council, Depolal Hojai and Mohet Hojai, had figured in the chargesheets filed at the special CBI court here today.
The head of CBI’s anti-corruption zone, Guwahati, H. Nongpluh, said the chargesheets were filed in three cases related to corruption in the public works department (PWD), public health engineering (PHE) department and agriculture department. “In case number RC1 (A)/2010-SHG relating to the PWD, Rs 1.74 crore sanctioned to execute work related to clearing of landslides and cutting of roadside drains at 40 spots of Harangajao subdivision in Mahur road division has been misappropriated by the nine accused,” Nongpluh said.
The others chargesheeted in the case are officials of PWD’s Mahur road division — executive engineer Debabrata Seal, junior engineer Joythanon Thaosen, sub-engineer-II P.K Roy, assistant executive engineer K.S. Das, accounts officer H.S. Das, cashier Keshab Bhattacharjee and private contractors Jayanta Kumar Ghosh and Debasis Bhattacharjee.
According to him, in the second case, number RC2 (A)/2010-SHG, related to the PHE department, the five accused had allegedly misappropriated nearly Rs 1.98 crore.
“In this particular case we have found that the money was released to two contractors through 13 cheques without getting any work done,” he said.
Apart from Mohet Hojai, executive engineer of PHE, Haflong, Karuna Saikia, upper division assistant of district library at Haflong Uttam Phanglosa, private contractors Dilip Phanglosa and Jibangshu Paul, were chargesheeted in this case.
In the third case, RC4 (A)/2010-SHG, relating to the agriculture department, the chargesheet was filed against two persons — assistant executive engineer of agriculture department, Haflong, Dipak Hazarika and assistant engineer Pramod Chandra Saikia.
They are accused of allegedly misappropriating Rs 15.75 lakh of Rs 18.75 lakh sanctioned for the work under the Integrated Jhumia Development Programme.
The CBI found that only Rs 3 lakh was actually released under the scheme to a particular village whereas on paper, release of Rs 18.75 lakh was shown. Nongpluh said these three scams had taken place in 2008 and 2009. The Assam government has referred nine cases to the CBI on the alleged corruption that took place in the NC Hills Autonomous Council. Five cases were referred last year and four cases this year.
The state government ordered a CBI inquiry after the National Investigation Agency’s (NIA) investigation into diversion of a huge sum of money from the development funds of the autonomous council to militant coffers revealed rampant corruption in several departments. “The remaining six cases, which are related to forest, health, soil conservation, district rural development agency and social welfare departments, are under investigation and chargesheets will be filed as soon as we complete our investigation,” he said.
Even though there had been allegations against some state government ministers and a former governor of the state for their alleged role in the corruption, none of these names figured in today’s chargesheets.
The CBI, however, said the cases are being investigated on the strength of the FIRs and the question of sparing anyone found guilty does not arise at all.
On being asked whether they have found any lacuna in the monitoring by the state government due to which the corruption could have taken place, Nongpluh said, “Maybe, but I can’t make any comment at this stage since our investigation into all the cases is not yet complete.”
