Dhanbad, May 22: After the anticipatory bail of tainted block development officer (BDO) Madan Prasad Singh was turned down, an inquiry has been ordered into fraudulent salary payment to employees of Notified Area Committee (NAC), Sindri.

Chief Judicial Magistrate in Dhanbad Ghanshyam Kumar Mallik has ordered a judicial inquiry against Dhanbad BDO Madan Prasad Singh and Baliapur BDO Jay Jyoti Samanta and 10 others in a case of fraudulent salary payment of more than Rs 1 crore to the NAC employees.

BDO Dhanbad has been holding the post of NAC?s special officer since Jharkhand?s creation in 2000 and BDO Baliapur has been holding the additional charge of special officer of NAC since December 2004.

Former NAC employee in Sindri, Baleshwar Prasad Singh, had filed a petition in the court of chief judicial magistrate on April 16, 2005. Acting on the petition, the CJM directed first class magistrate of fast track court Abhimanyu Kumar to conduct a judicial inquiry into the complaint.

Earlier, the then deputy commissioner in Dhanbad Mahabir Prasad had directed the special officer of NAC Sindri through a letter dated August 8, 1996, to stop payment of salary to 100 NAC employees in Sindri.

The employees, who were inducted into service during 1960-1970, had forged a fresh service book in 1989 and their original service book had gone missing. They were given out-of-turn promotions through the forged service book and many of them got promoted to non-existent posts.

But no action was taken against the culprits and succeeding deputy commissioner B. Rajendra ordered a probe into the issue by a two-member committee of SDO Dhanbad N. Lal and executive magistrate Iqbal Alam Ansari.

In light of the inquiry committee report findings, deputy secretary in urban development ministry wrote to the SDO Dhanbad on May 8, 2000, to dismiss all NAC employees against whom there was corruption charge.

The joint secretary in urban development ministry of the Bihar government, Arun Kumar Singh, directed Rajendra on June 8, 2000, to take action against the guilty. But successive deputy commissioners have skirted the issue.

Many casual workers without any necessary qualification were inducted into supervisory rank directly and many outsiders became NAC employees through forged documents. Service books were forged not only in 1989 but also in 1992 and 2002.Complainant Baleshwar Singh had produced incriminating documents against 39 NAC employees in the court of CJM. Baleshwar Singh said he was suspended two months before his retirement date in 2004 and he is yet to get the retirement benefits for acting as a whistle-blower.

?I had written to deputy commissioner Beela Rajesh at least a dozen times about the fraudulent payments but nothing was done about it which forced me to opt for judicial redressal,? Singh said.