A division bench of the Gujarat High Court on Friday disposed of a public interest litigation on allegations of irregularities and misappropriation of funds by the employee-officials in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in Jafrabad taluka of Amreli.
The PIL was disposed of after state authorities submitted that an FIR has been registered in this regard at Jafrabad police station booking four officials.
The petition by a lawyer-cum-activist Rajendrakumar Barot, represented by advocates Mahesh and Archita Prajapati, was filed in 2022, alleging siphoning off of MNREGS wages worth over Rs 4 crore, through third party transfers to non-beneficiaries by issuance of fake/forged job cards.
The PIL had sought that an FIR against the defaulters be lodged as per provisions under MNREGA and that the amount misappropriated be recovered from the accounts where the money under the scheme was credited.
Director of District Rural Development Office of MGNREGA in Amreli and district development officer of Amreli submitted before the division bench of Acting Chief Justice AJ Desai and Justice Biren Vaishnav through an affidavit following issuance of notice by the court that an FIR was registered in December 2022.
According to the officials’ affidavit, taluka development officer of Jafrabad was asked to conduct a “detailed enquiry” and a report was submitted to this effect in September 2021.
The TDO’s report had found three officials — S.G. Jadeja, Assistant Programme Officer, Jafrabad, V.S.Basan, Accounts Assistant, Jafrabad and J.R. Vadiya, MIS, Jafrabad were “responsible for duplicate/fake job card and third-party payment.”
Following the TDO’s report, the Director, District Rural Development Agency (DRDA), Amreli terminated the services of the three employees. However the three were reinstated after they moved Gujarat HC challenging their termination. While reinstating them in July 2022, the court had held that the order of termination could not have been passed on the allegation of misconduct without holding a full-fledged enquiry.
Subsequently, on December 20, 2022, an FIR was lodged at Jafrabad police station against four employees — the three who were terminated and another Ashwin Shiyal, technical assistant under the scheme — charging them for the offences punishable under IPC sections 409, 420, 465, 467, 468, 471, 477A, 120B, 34 and 114 of Indian Penal Code.
In another PIL filed by Barot in 2019 alleging duplication and triplication of jobcards of 119 households in Tapi district, the division bench on Friday granted time to the authorities to file an affidavit in reply if they wish to by April 6 on the allegations of irregularities raised in the PIL.
