Jorhat, May 5: Jorhat deputy commissioner Solanki Vishal Vasant has formed a screening committee to look into the suspected fake appointments of nearly 30 grade III and IV employees in the health department in the district.
Jorhat is the home district of chief minister Tarun Gogoi, former Union minister and veteran Congress leader B.K. Handique and AICC secretary-cum-Jorhat district president of the Congress and local MLA Rana Goswami.
Solanki, in an order issued last week, has constituted a seven-member "high-powered screening committee" to be headed by the additional deputy commissioner (health) Bubul Lekharu.
The committee will "check appointments and transfer-related documents of 24 employees in the office of the district joint director (health services) and six employees in the district malaria office to probe the alleged fake/irregular appointments in the health department".
The joint director (health services) Mubidur Rahman is the member-secretary while the Jorhat treasury officer Bipul Phukan, finance and accounts officer, Rashmi Rekha Devi, district immunisation officer Amrit Saikia and sub-divisional medical and health officer Tapan Dutta (both doctors) and district malaria officer A. Rahman are members of the committee.
The deputy commissioner's move comes after a report submitted to him by the treasury office recently, stated finding many anomalies in the salary bills of the 30 employees in recent times.
The report said certain "documents and facts" of the employees were doubtful and suspected to have been faked.
Administration sources said the committee is scheduled to hold its first meeting on Friday and begin examining the documents submitted by the 30 employees to the department at the time of their appointment.
Sources said the committee would ask the employees under suspicion to appear before it and show the original documents related to their appointments or transfers, as some had reportedly shown as "being transferred" from other districts.
The development assumes importance, as last year, another 12-member committee, headed by Lekharu and constituted by the deputy commissioner, had detected 84 alleged cases of fake appointments in the health department in the past few years. After the deputy commissioner submitted a report to Dispur on the basis of the committee's findings, the salaries of the employees have been withheld by the government since October 2014.
An inquiry into the matter is in progress by the chief minister minister's vigilance cell with the officials of the cell visiting the district several times and examining documents of the employees and questioning some staff of the health department.
On Thursday, the joint director (health services) issued a directive to all PHCs in the district to bar the 84 employees from carrying out their allotted duties and debar them from signing in the attendance register.
The notice said the directive was issued after receiving an instruction from the chief minister's vigilance cell, stating that the investigation carried out by the cell has detected gross irregularities in the appointment of the 84 employees.
The first committee had also suspected involvement of a few staff and officers of the health department in the scam and suggested legal action.
The formation of the first committee by the deputy commissioner was done after the BJP's Assam unit general secretary Santanu Pujari, suspecting large-scale anomalies in the appointment of a section of employees in the health department, filed for documents through RTI in 2012.
Subsequently, he along with two Jorhat-based advocates - Rintu Goswami and Gautam Borah - made representations to the deputy commissioner to order a probe into the appointments.
