HC directs CBI to register case against NAFED officials

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has directed CBI to register a case against the erring National Agricultural Marketing Federation of India Ltd (NAFED) officials, taking cognizance of a CAG report indicting them for alleged financial irregularities of Rs 900 crore.

Directing the CBI to appear personally before it on December 19, a Division Bench of Chief Justice M K Sharma and Justice Sanjeev Khanna observed that "the erring officials should be put behind the bar".

Pursuant to Bench's earlier order, the Deputy Director of CAG had appeared before it and submitted 61-page report stating that under the Price Support Scheme (PSS) the major loss incurred in the mustard seed stock in comparison to other commodities during the period 2000-2006.

Giving detail about the discrepancies in mustard stocks in various branch offices of NAFED, the report stated that there was excess purchase of mustard seed in violation of the norms fixed for the procurement.

It was also pointed that the purchases of seed were made in the name of bogus land owners as the land did not exist in their names.

In some branches of NAFED it was found that some cheques were issued in the name of farmers, who does exist, resulting the benefit of the PSS was passed to some other persons than the real farmers, the report pointed out.

Due to irregularities in sale of the seed, there was non deposit and forfeit of security deposits worth crores by the buyers, the report also said. It was also found in various branch offices that NAFED failed to recover penalties from the defaulting farmers or agriculture firms, who bought the seed from co-operative society and failed to deposit 10 per cent value of the tender quantity.

Besides, there was a failure in collecting the statement of stock from each warehouse to ascertain the loss and gain of the stock, the report further stated.

Some branch offices have also distributed mustard seed to various processing mills disproportionate to their capacity, the report added.

The Court was hearing a PIL filed by Advocate Sugriv Dubey seeking enquiry into the alleged financial irregularities in NAFED