By IANS,
Panaji : The Panaji bench of the Bombay High Court has taken cognisance of a newspaper report on an alleged scam in the purchase of Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL) worth over Rs.50 lakh (Rs.5 million) and ordered that the article be converted into a public interest litigation (PIL).
The division bench comprising of Justices S.B. Deshmukh and U.D. Salvi Monday observed that the article published in the local English daily O Heraldo “espoused public clause”.
The hearing has been scheduled for next week. In the article ‘Who will bell the cat?’ published Sep 13, the author John Eric Gomes, using documents sourced under the Right To Information (RTI) Act, had alleged a massive scam in the purchase of CFL by the state’s power department.
Gomes had alleged that the power department had no quality control wing to check the standard of CFL purchased. He had also alleged that the department had no procedure to ascertain whether the lamps purchased could last even a year.
The alleged fraudulent purchase of CFL worth Rs.51.54 lakh was hotly debated in the monsoon session of the state assembly, with leader of opposition Manohar Parrikar even exhibiting a non-functioning CFL with him on the floor of the house.
Parrikar alleged that the lamps made in China were substandard. He also said that a majority of the CFLs purchased and fitted by the power department were not functioning and sought a probe into the purchase.
Incidentally, former power minister and Chief Minister Digambar Kamat has sought grants from the central ministry for environment and forests to the tune of Rs.65 crore to make Goa a 100 percent CFL state.