Working at Delhi Chief Minister’s House: Two officials suspended, five others face action on LG’s orders | Delhi News

The two suspended officials are chief engineer Vinay Chaudhary and deputy engineer Rajat Kant.

This is the first time that such action has been taken in this context, after all seven officials were sent a request for comment a year ago.

The issue of renovating the house was first officially raised last year, when the supervisory authority raised questions about the expenditure and procedure for carrying out the work.

While Kejriwal remains in custody following his arrest in cases related to Delhi’s tax policy, his family lives at the official residence, which also houses the chief minister’s camp office.

The officers against whom the complaint was filed include two who have since retired: AK Ahuja, then Chief Engineer, and Shibnath Dhara, then Executive Engineer (Central and New Division). Both were recommended for disciplinary action with “severe punishment”.

The other three officers are

PK Parmar, then Chief Engineer (East), Ashok Kumar Rajdev, Chief Engineer, and Abhishek Raj, who was posted as Executive Engineer.

Vinay Chaudhary and Rajat Kant declined to comment.

When asked for comment, Ahuja said, “I retired in September 2020 and the tender was issued in October. The work was awarded in December… There might be a mistake and I had mentioned in my reply to the call for comments that I retired when work on this project started… The notice sent to me mentioned that I had recommended demolition of the building but this was done by the chief engineer, not me.”

Abhishek Raj said he would wait for the CPWD to take a decision on the matter.

The others – Shibnath Dhara, PK Parmar and Ashok Kumar Rajdev – could not be reached for comment.

Last year, the Vigilance Department had issued a notice to the officials accusing them of “wasteful expenditure” of nearly Rs 53 crore on renovation and remodeling of the official residence.

They were asked to respond to allegations of various “misdemeanours and omissions” on their part on the basis of a report prepared by the department concerned.

“It has been observed that these officials are using delaying tactics to stall the matter and have nothing to say… These officials had also approached the court but no court could help them in four rounds of litigation,” the vigilance department’s letter to the CPWD director general said.

The CPWD, a government official said, has received the recommendations. “Any action will have to be approved by Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Manohar Lal Khattar,” the official said.

The Vigilance Department has also asked the CPWD to submit an action report on the matter.

According to the request for comment sent to PWD officials last year, Kejriwal was entitled to only a flat below Type VIII and the current house was “disproportionately high” in view of the prevailing norms.

It also said that the construction and plinth area had increased from 1,397 sq m to 1,905 sq m during the implementation of the project and that an additional Rs 6.94 crore had been spent on “work to higher specifications”.

These included “artistic work on mouldings over RCC”, a skylight window over the main staircase area and use of Burmese teak. They were also asked to explain why the old building at 6 Flagstaff Road was demolished without a survey report and why no building plans were approved for the new building constructed by the PWD.

The vigilance department had earlier said that an amount of around Rs 52.71 crore was spent by the PWD on the residential complex cum camp office of the Chief Minister and that the construction work on the residence was marked as an extension and alteration but an entire building was constructed to replace the existing structure.