Cuttack, Nov. 3: An affidavit, filed as a sequel to a PIL, has alleged that political appointment to the post of the chairman of state corporations violates the Justice Wadhwa Committee recommendation, which had been accepted by the Supreme Court.

City-based lawyer Basant Kumar Baral submitted the affidavit after filing a PIL in the high court seeking judicial intervention to stop political appointment to the post of the chairman of state corporations in Orissa “to check wastage of public money”.

The PIL was filed on October 25 after the Naveen Patnaik government said that 32 posts of chairman/president of corporations and PSUs would be filled by appointing party leaders.

The affidavit said that the Justice Wadhwa Committee was constituted by the Supreme Court to give recommendations for the smooth functioning of the Public Distribution System (PDS). The committee had enquired about PDS in Orissa separately and submitted its report to the Supreme Court.

The Justice Wadhwa Committee report had observed that the PDS in Orissa is mismanaged and there was a tendency among transporters, storage agents, dealers, officers for Civil Supplies Corporation and Civil Supplies department to steal the ration of poor people. As a result, the common man did not get any benefit from PDS in the state.

The report had made 19 recommendations and one of them stated: “The chairman of the corporation should not be a political/private person. His appointment should be transparent. Corporation should be run strictly on professional basis. The earlier practice of appointing the secretary of food and supplies department was better and should be restored.” This was cited by the petitioner.

“The state government had set a target of restructuring four units and privatisation of two PSUs during 2003-04. But till date, no PSU has been privatised despite spending Rs 240 crore,” the petition alleged.

Political appointment is not only “detrimental to public interest” but also violated the MoU the state government had signed with the Centre in October 2001 to pursue the Public Enterprises Reforms programme, the PIL added.

It is also contrary to the White Paper published by the Government of Orissa in April 2002 and the terms of funding by the Department for International Development (DFID), the PIL contended.

The Government of Orissa had committed in its White Paper to appoint a Public Enterprises Reforms Commission to deal exclusively with the cases of PSE privatization and restructuring and create a State Renewal Fund (SRF) to finance Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS). But neither the Commission nor the SRF had been constituted after eight years.