New Delhi: Former Delhi Commission for Women chief Barkha Shukla on Friday pointed at the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) involvement in the appointment of members in the body while also alleging that there was no conduct of educational checks during their recruitment.
The remarks of Barkha Shukla came after a special court ordered the framing of corruption and criminal conspiracy charges against DCW Chairperson Swati Maliwal. The court had found prima facie sufficient material that the accused had abused their official position in allegedly appointing Aam Admi Party (AAP) workers to different posts in the commission.
Shukla, who is the Complainant in the case, told ANI that Maliwal’s secretary Archana Arora who was an IAS officer had resigned due to inappropriate treatment accorded to her.
“Appointments in the Delhi Commission of Women after 2015 weren’t done as per the rules. They recruited their own people. High salaries amounting to nearly Rs 1 lakh are paid. There has been a lot of corruption. Maliwal’s secretary should be an IAS officer. Earlier there was Archana Arora but she resigned as they misbehaved with her. Then they recruited their own volunteer who did not belong to the IAS category for the post,” she said.
Shukla further alleged that the “fraud” of appointments is taking place under the Aam Aadmi Party’s watch. “It’s AAP’s fraud. It’s all happening under the Aam Aadmi Party’s watch. They do what they want. The level of education and social work experience of appointees weren’t checked before making a person a member. I had complained in 2015, the result has come now,” she said.
Earlier on Thursday, the court observed that a strong suspicion does arise against all four accused persons and the facts do disclose prima facie sufficient material to frame charges against all the four accused persons for offences U/s 120B of IPC r/w Sec. 13(1)(d)/13(2) of POC Act, as well as for the substantive offence U/s 13(2) r/w Sec. 13(1)(2) of POC Act. Charges be framed accordingly, said Special Judge Dig Vinay Singh. Along with DCW Chairperson Swati Maliwal, the court also ordered to put then members of DCW Promila Gupta, Sarika Chaudhary and Farheen Malick on trial.
According to the prosecution, all the four accused in the conspiracy were together involved in abusing their official position and obtained pecuniary advantages for the party workers and acquaintances of Swati Maliwal as well as the ruling party namely AAP. It has been alleged that such workers and acquaintances were appointed to different posts of DCW without following due process. Instead, the appointments were made in contravention of procedures, Rules, Regulations, without even advertising for the positions, in violation of General Finance Rules (GFR) and other guidelines and money was disbursed to various such persons towards remuneration/salary/ honorarium.
While passing the order the Court said that the perusal of minutes of the meetings held on various dates by the DCW, in which all four accused were signatories, was “enough to prima facie point to a strong suspicion that the appointments in question were made by the accused persons in agreement with each other”. (ANI)
