By IANS,
New Delhi : The Delhi High Court Monday ordered a vigilance probe into alleged financial irregularities in public broadcaster Prasar Bharati and also appointed a retired judge to supervise its board meetings.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Ajit Prakash Shah and Justice Manmohan directed the board to convene its meeting within 15 days.
The bench passed the order after the government failed to reconcile differences between chairman of the board Arun Bhatnagar and CEO B.S. Lalli.
“We are also of the opinion that keeping in view the unjustified attitude of the CEO, as would be apparent from his last affidavit in which he has repeatedly stated that some members holding slender majority are trying to weaken his office, no useful purpose would be served by convening a board meeting under the supervision of a senior law officer,” the bench observed.
It directed Prasar Bharati to file the minutes of the meeting within 10 days and that all proceedings of the meeting should be videographed.
The bench nominated former judge J.P. Singh to supervise the board meetings and slated the next hearing for Aug 25.
The court said that day-to-day work of the public broadcaster would be handled by the CEO and two senior officials.
The chairman had contended that the allegations of financial irregularities must be investigated by the Central Vigilance Commission as no internal audit has been done for the past several years.
The court’s observations came while it was hearing a public interest petition seeking direction to the central government to remove the CEO whose tenure has been extended.
It was alleged that Lalli, who was appointed in 2006, was to retire in April this year after attaining 62 years of age, but his tenure was extended after the government applied an amendment with retrospective effect.
The petitioner, the Centre for Public Interest Litigation, an NGO, also sought an independent probe into the allegations of financial irregularities by the CEO.