New Delhi: The Committee looking after Mahatma Gandhi's Samadhi at Rajghat has been dragged to court on the occasion of the 137th anniversary of his birth on charges of corruption at his memorial.
A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed in the Delhi High Court by 14 employees of the Rajghat Samadhi Committee alleges large-scale fraud of Samadhi funds and mismanagement.
The PIL, filed on September 18 against Rajghat Samadhi Committee Chairman and Urban Development Minister S Jaipal Reddy, its Deputy Chairperson and eminent Gandhian Nirmala Deshpande and two others, seeks a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). It is listed for a hearing on December 8.
The allegations include embezzlement of money in the name of repairs of name boards of saplings planted by visiting Heads of State, lakhs of rupees of wasteful expenditure on buying carpets and fraud even at the shoes-deposit counter for visitors.
The petition says the Samadhi Committee office has been given the appearance of a corporate office with plush fittings and furnishings giving a go-by to Gandhian aesthetics and austerity.
According to the petition, 144 of the 186 name boards of saplings planted by visiting dignitaries have been lost resulting in a loss of Rs 331,200 though these had been installed during redevelopment of the Samadhi only a couple of years ago.
The Samadhi Committee spent Rs 11 lakh on new carpets between 2002 and 2005 though there was a stock worth Rs 5 lakh through "rush purchases" made on the occasions of October 2 and January 30, Gandhiji's death anniversary, in these years, it says.
The shoes-deposit counters for visitors, which had a surplus balance, lost Rs 1,53,000 in 2004-05 because it is run as a private business for making money, the PIL alleges.
Most of the charges are made against the Samadhi Committee Secretary Rajnish Kumar, whom the PIL accuses of holding three posts at the complex illegally.
Kumar, who was an Assistant Caretaker at the Samadhi till 2002, is drawing the salaries of the same post as well as that of a Clerk-cum-General Assistant besides his own, it alleges.
He also recently purchased a house in Rohini at the cost of Rs 51 lakh though he has been earning an average salary of only Rs 5,500 till some years ago, the petition says.
The petitioners say the Rajghat Samadhi Committee, which has been constituted under the Rajghat Samadhi Act 1951, is "virtually non-functioning" and has not been meeting thrice a year since 2003, giving a free run to Kumar.
It says a private contractor has been engaged at Rs 25,000 per month for maintaining toilets at the complex though there are 9 permanent sweepers appointed for the purpose.
The petition, which is listed for hearing on December 8, seeks an inquiry by the CBI into the functioning of the Samadhi Committe.
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