By IANS,
Panaji : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Tuesday demanded a criminal probe in the “illegal” appointment of Goa Sports Minister Manohar alias Babu Azgaonkar’s daughter in the sports department. The minister has denied any wrongdoing.
Addressing a press conference here, BJP spokesperson Rajendra Arlekar demanded that Azgaonkar, along with three bureaucrats who were part of the panel which “fraudulently” selected Meeta Azgaonkar as a dietician with the Sports Authority of Goa (SAG), should be booked.
“The RRs (recruitment rules) were flouted by the selection panel which comprised of Dr M. Modassir (Indian Administrative Service), SAG director V.M. Prabhudessai and joint secretary Yatindra Maralkar. They should be sacked, along with Meeta. They should be booked and prosecuted for fraudulently appointing her,” Arlekar said.
The appointment of Azgaonkar’s daughter took place before April 2011, when Modassir was sports secretary. He is now the state election commissioner.
“It is not just a case of flouting RRs for illegal appointment of the sports minister’s daughter. The salary of the post of junior scientific officer for which Meeta was appointed was hiked from Rs.25,000 to Rs.46,000 overnight. This is a financial fraud too,” Arlekar said.
The BJP leader further said that Right to Information (RTI) activist Nilesh Patekar had already filed a complaint before police, who were not registering it.
Speaking to IANS, Azgaonkar denied the charges, saying that there was no violation of rules in the appointment of his daughter.
“Just because she is my daughter, does it make her ineligible for appointment? Let him go to court and stop the appointment if there is any proof against her,” Azgaonkar said.
He, however, refused to clarify how the salary of a junior scientific officer shot to nearly double overnight.
The latest charge comes as another blow for the Congress-led coalition government, whose several ministers, including Chief Minister Digambar Kamat himself, are already under the scanner in the illegal mining scam, with the BJP accusing the government of overseeing a Rs.25,000 crore illegal mining scam.