ACAUT Nagaland demands suspension of F&CS Secretary

Dimapur, April 20 (MExN): ACAUT Nagaland today demanded that the Secretary, Food & Civil Supplies (F&CS), as the head of the department, be held accountable and immediately suspended on moral grounds for his “failure to discharge his duties to check and act on the gross misappropriation of Rs. 402 crores in his department and to enable an impartial inquiry.”  

The demand comes a day after the Secretary of F&CS issued a clarification on the fund misappropriation and other allegations against the department.  

Reacting to the Secretary’s press statement, ACAUT Nagaland in a press release issued by its Media Cell stated, “To say that it (F&CS department) is unaware of the misappropriation of whopping Rs. 402 crores as report has not been received from CAG or from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is simply outrageous as CAG report is all out in the public domain.”

  Stating that it is the prerogative of the Secretary as head of the department to check any misappropriation in his department, ACAUT said “to deny ignorance of misappropriation of not in terms of lakhs but hundreds of Crores is just not acceptable by any standard.”  

It also questioned whether the Chief Secretary and the Government have submitted the CAG Report to the PAC, if so, why has PAC not submitted the report to F&CS. “Either way it seems quite apparent that there’s a conspiracy by all parties involved to hush up the matter,” it stated.  

Maintaining that F&CS Secretary has implicated the Chief Secretary, Government of Nagaland and the PAC for the failure to notify the Department of F&CS on the misappropriation of Rs 402 crores, ACAUT said thus it is requisite on the part of the Chief Secretary, Government of Nagaland and the PAC to clarify the matter at the earliest.  

Meanwhile, the organization demanded that Central Bureau of Investigation be summoned to investigate the enormous misappropriation. It also asserted that the Government of Nagaland, Chief Secretary and the PAC must clarify to the people on why such gross misappropriation has not been notified and acted on.  

ACAUT Nagaland further warned that unless the Government brings in the CBI to investigate the huge misappropriation of public money, it will have no choice but resort to drastic measures even to the extent of calling the public and closing down the Department of F&CS indefinitely.