The Supreme Court recently directed the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) to examine the corruption allegation against the Arunachal Pradesh government during the 2007-2011 term. A petition has been moved in the top court raising allegations of corruption in relation to certain tenders floated by the Arunachal Pradesh government.
The bench comprising Justice Aniruddha Bose and Justice Bela M Trivedi passed the judgment in a Special Leave Petition where the petitioners alleged that contracts were given by the state government of Arunachal Pradesh without floating any tender.
Notably, the petitioner, Voluntary Arunachal Senaahad, filed the plea in 2010 challenging a decision of the Gauhati High Court. The Chief Minister of the state during 2007-2011 term, Dorjee Khandu and present Chief Minister Pema Khandu are respondents in the matter in their personal capacity.
The bench was initially concerned about the time gap between the date of alleged occurrence and the date of hearing. Considering this, appearing for the petitioner, Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the petitioner, Voluntary Arunachal Senaa, had tried to impress upon the Court that there was ex facie corruption, as contracts were awarded without tenders being floated, that too to the Chief Minister’s own relatives.
Meanwhile, the State of Arunachal Pradesh argued that the beneficiary of the contracts, as well as the former Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu had passed away. Hence, the Special Leave Petition had abated against him.
Last year in October, the apex court sought a response from the CAG on two aspects namely, whether very close relatives to the Executive Head of the State can be awarded Government contracts and if the answer is in the affirmative, what would be the norms for awarding contracts to such persons.
Recently, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has been ordered to supervise and probe the aforesaid allegations.