Jorhat, April 25: Joint secretary (health) Mallika Medhi arrived here today to augment the ongoing inquiry into the alleged fake appointments of over 100 grade III and grade IV employees of the health department four years ago.

Jorhat additional deputy commissioner (health and education), Bubul Lekharu, told The Telegraph that Medhi had come to collect data for the departmental probe into the health department's fake appointment case.

Lekharu said Medhi visited the district joint director's (health) office and checked official records and documents related to the case.

He said the joint secretary also held discussions with the district treasury officer, Bipul Phukan, on financial details regarding the manner in which the salaries of the 114 employees were disbursed.

The salaries of the 114 employees have been withheld by the government since October 2014 after receiving reports from the two committees constituted by Jorhat deputy commissioner Solanki Vishal Vasant.

The employees have been debarred from office and stopped from signing the attendance register since the early part of last year.

The additional deputy commissioner (health and education) said Phukon had briefed Medhi on the kind of official documents submitted by the tainted employees to the treasury department and other related records to his office. A 12-member committee was formed by the Jorhat deputy commissioner in 2014 to probe the allegations of fake appointments in the health department.

It was headed by Lekharu with the then joint director of health, Anup Bordoloi, as the member secretary and Phukon as a member.

The committee, after examining all official documents and records in the office and those of the suspected staff, said seven clerical employees of the joint director's office had conspired to make the fake appointments.

Altogether 82 fake appointments were detected in the first phase and another 32 in the second phase by two probe committees formed by the deputy commissioner.

Sources said the committee found that false appointment letters were issued to persons for posts that did not exist while some were shown to be transferred from other districts. Last month, the director of health department Guwahati, Rathin Bhuyan, suspended five employees of the district joint director of health, Jorhat, for their alleged involvement in the fake appointments case.

The director's order had said of the seven employees, his office had the authority to suspend only five, since of the other two, one was a gazetted officer while the other had retired. An inquiry by the chief minister's vigilance cell is in progress. Its officials are examining documents of the employees and questioning the health department staff several times.

Sources said Medhi will be visiting Tinsukia district later this week to conduct a probe into a similar case in the health department.