MP govt dusts off 2006 report, files FIR against Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh

Justice Shacheendra Dwivedi, a former judge of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, had submitted a report in 2006 recommending a CBI probe into illegal appointments made in the assembly secretariat during the 10-year rule of the Congress. The report had pointed out that scores of appointments were illegally made, some on plain paper, and the beneficiaries were not qualified for the posts.

The BJP government had favoured a CBI probe but the central agency had written back in 2008 saying the state should get it probed by its own agency. Since then the report was lying in cold storage with the government neither instituting any inquiry nor talking about it.

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Late Friday night, the Jahangirabad Police Station registered the FIR on a complaint from a deputy secretary in the assembly. The action came a day after the assembly’s budget session ended abruptly following uproar over MPPEB scam that has dominated headlines recently.

SP (South) Anshuman Singh told The Indian Express that the FIR was lodged against 19 persons, including Singh and Tiwari, under Sections 420, 468, 471 and 120 (b) of the IPC and Section 13 (1) (c) of the Prevention of Corruption Act. He said the police would examine the documents submitted with the complaint and decide future course after a thorough investigation.

While the ruling BJP justified the FIR, the Congress party accused the government of political vendetta.