The Hindu : Front Page : Fisheries scam: probe to cover Ministers’ role

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Monday, Dec 22, 2008
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Fisheries scam: probe to cover Ministers’ role

HYDERABAD: The State government on Sunday decided to bring Ministers and senior officials of the departments that were involved in granting contracts to Fisheries Department executive engineer V. Suryanarayana under the purview of the Commission of Inquiry it has instituted.

This comes a day after the government has, in principle, decided to order a judicial probe by a retired judge into the alleged irregular means through which Suryanarayana secured contracts from various departments using his “high profile contacts.” Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy who reviewed the matter with Chief Secretary P. Ramakanth Reddy said that the government would not spare anybody found guilty of irregularities.

Criticising the Opposition for portraying all the Ministers as corrupt on the basis of newspaper reports, he ruled out the involvement of some Ministers in awarding works as alleged and the Chief Secretary too was in no way concerned with the matter, he said.

“Why will he permit the arrest of the accused if he is involved,” he asked.

Dr. Reddy defended the handing over of the inquiry to a retired judge on the ground that a probe by the CBI would take a long time and the sitting judges were not in a position to spare time for the government.

Mr. Ramakanth Reddy told reporters later that the contracts awarded, quality of works and other aspects would be probed in a time-bound manner.

The government had commenced the process of identifying the judicial officer and finalising the terms of reference for the commission of inquiry.

The Chief Secretary declined to specify a timeframe for completion of this process, saying: “If I do so, you (the media) will start attributing motives the moment the given time lapses.” Asked whether an impartial probe would be possible if he continued in the post, he said “let the decision be taken at the highest level, I will abide by it.”

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