Cuttack, March 7: Orissa High Court has decided to consider the necessity of a CBI probe into the alleged dal scam involving supply of sub-standard pulses at primary schools and anganwadi centres in the state.

The dal scam, involving alleged fraud by supply of sub-standard dal under Special Nutrition Programme to check dropouts among children at the primary school level, had rocked the state in January 2011.

It had led to the resignation of Pramila Mallik as women and child welfare minister. The state government had ordered a vigilance probe.

The scam had reached the high court when public interest litigation was filed seeking judicial intervention against supply of sub-standard, rotten and infected dal under the Special Nutrition Programme across the state. Dillip Kumar Mohapatra, an advocate of the high court filed the petition.

Acting on it the high court monitored the investigation undertaken by the state vigilance in February 2011. Subsequently, the state vigilance submitted two status reports on the investigation.

In June last year, Mohapatra filed a fresh petition for allowing an amendment petition seeking CBI probe into the dal scam. The petition had since been languishing in the high court till it came up for hearing yesterday.

The division bench of Chief Justice A.K. Goel and Justice A.K. Rath, before which the petition came up yesterday, allowed filing of an amendment petition for a CBI probe. The court will consider the necessity of a CBI probe after the petitioner files a consolidated petition for it.

Mohapatra wanted a CBI probe as the two status reports on investigation submitted by the state vigilance in the high court indicated that the probe had been limited to only five districts — Deogarh, Mayurbhanj, Balasore, Ganjam and Jajpur.

Five cases had been registered after inquiries revealed supply of substandard dal at higher rate under Special Nutrition Programme and Mid-Day Meal Programme.

“But, the state vigilance department had not taken up investigation into allegation of supply of substandard dal in 25 other districts only to give cover and to protect the public servants, who have been entrusted with the job for procurement, purchase, storage, distribution and supply,” he alleged.

A CBI probe is imperative in view of the observations made in the Comptroller and Auditor General’s audit report for the year that has been presented in the state legislative Assembly, Mohapatra contended.

“While 1,09,357.24 quintals of dal was procured without conducting prescribed tests at the district level, 1,18,494 quintals of dal was supplied without obtaining the prescribed certificates from other committees at the feeding centre level,” Mohapatra stated, quoting the CAG report.

According to the petition, the CAG report had 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 at the district and block levels were either not constituted or, wherever constituted, these did not meet regularly.