Orissa High Court

Cuttack, Aug. 5: Orissa High Court has decided to consider the necessity of a CBI probe into the supply of inferior quality dal to the government for midday meal scheme and anganwadi centres.

Following a furore over the scam in 2011, the then minister for women and child development Pramila Mallick had to step down from the government that had got the scam probed by the state vigilance.

The two-judge bench of Justice Pradip Mohanty and Justice Biswajit Mohanty, before which a petition seeking a CBI probe into the scam, came up today, posted the matter to after three weeks for hearing along with the reply of the state government.

The court directed the state government to file its counter affidavit to the plea for the CBI probe into the scam.

Initially, high court lawyer Dillip Kumar Mohapatra had filed a PIL in 2011. Acting on the PIL for proper implementation of midday meal and supplementary nutrition programmes in the state, the high court monitored the investigation by the state vigilance.

The state vigilance had submitted two status reports on the investigation, the last one being on July 11, 2011. The PIL was pending in the high court. Subsequently, the court, in March 2011, allowed Mohapatra to file a fresh petition for the CBI probe in the form of an amended PIL petition.

In his fresh plea, Mohapatra sought court’s direction for the CBI probe on the ground that the state vigilance had not carried out investigation on alleged supply of sub-standard pulses in primary schools and anganwadis in all the 30 districts.

The two status reports, submitted by the state vigilance in court, indicated that the probe had been limited to only five districts — Deogarh, Mayurbhanj, Balasore, Ganjam and Jajpur. Five cases were registered after inquiries had exposed supply of sub-standard dal at higher rate under the Special Nutrition Programme and the Midday Meal Programme.

According to the petition, the comptroller and auditor general’s report for the year ended in March 2012 stated: “While 1,09,357.24 quintals dal was procured without conducting prescribed tests at the district level, 1,18,494 quintals was supplied without obtaining the prescribed certificates from other committees at the feeding centre level.”

The CAG report had further observed that monitoring of the implementation of the programme was not adequate as the state level steering-cum-monitoring committee did not meet regularly. The committees in the district and block levels were either not constituted or, wherever constituted, did not meet regularly.