New Delhi, March 14: The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) has directed the government to terminate all departmental proceedings against an IAS officer after it failed to complete inquiry against him 15 years after the alleged misappropriation of FCI stocks. “The unexplained delay in departmental proceedings against the petitioner in the context of the allegations against him appears to us to be fatal,” the CAT said.
In the case, the officer was accused of favouring millers who had misappropriated FCI stocks causing losses to the tune of Rs 17.44 crore to the FCI between 1994-95 during his tenure as senior regional manager in Punjab. Acquitting Sarvesh Kaushal, presently working in the rank of principal secretary with the Punjab government, from the charges of misappropriating the stocks, the Tribunal said that they were supervisory lapses on his part.
“There is no direct involvement of Kaushal in misappropriating the stocks and it would be more in the nature of supervisory or procedural lapses,” the Tribunal bench headed by its Chairman Justice V K Bali said. The CAT pulled up the Food Corporation of India for causing undue delay in handling the case against him and said that the FCI “woke up from their deep slumber” fifteen years after the incident.
—–PTI