Congress MLAs stage walkout over sal seeds scam

Main opposition Congress on Monday staged a walkout from the Chhattisgarh Assembly as they were dissatisfied with the Chief Minster's reply on their demand for tabling report of the probe committee on sal seeds scam in the House.

Raising the issue during Question Hour, senior Congress legislator Satyanarayan Sharma sought to know when was the probe committee constituted to probe the scam that was unearthed in 2009 and names of the officials roped into the committee. Sharma also asked names of the officials who were indicted in the alleged multi-crore scam.

In his reply, Chief Minister Raman Singh said following the complaints of irregularities in procurement of sal seeds in 2009, a probe was directed into it on December 21, 2010. The investigating officer, then Chief Conservator of Forest (Conservation) BK Sinha, submitted his report in this connection on February 23, 2011. Later, a one-member committee headed by Commerce and Industries Secretary Dinesh Shrivastava was formed to verify the recommendations of Sinha's report, he said. Then the Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), East Surguja Forest Division CL Agrawal, then DFO East Surguja VS Dhruv, then DFO Jashpur Nagar SP Rajak, then sub-divisional officer Ramanujganj forest division Laurence Ekka, then Deputy SDO Jashpur Nagar DP Pandey, then SDO Jashpur Nagar RK Malhotra, then Ranger Jashpur Nagar RK Sisodiya, then Forest Ranger Tapkara Ishwar Kujur, then ranger Ramanujganj S N Mishra and then ranger Jashpur G S Thakur were indicted in the report, he said.

Sharma further asked what action was taken against the guilty officers, to which Singh replied that show-cause notices were issues to DFOs and lower-level officers. Dissatisfied with the answer, Sharma alleged that the state government was not at all serious about such a big scam involving senior officials, who had purchased sal seeds at a very cheap rate and sold them in Raipur at higher rates.

Sharma again pressed for his demand to table the report of the probe committee in the House. When the Chief Minister did not react to his demand, the opposition members staged a walkout from the House.