Andhra Pradesh High Court issued notices to senior IAS officer & special chief secretary in the state government Poonam Malakondaiah in a case pertaining to alleged irregularities in the formation of the AP MedTech Zone at Visakhapatnam & misappropriation of funds belonging to National Health Mission.
Acting on a public interest litigation petition filed by a senior journalist V Venkata Ramana Murthy, a division bench of the HC comprising Chief Justice Dheeraj Singh Thakur & judge justice R Raghunandan Rao issued notices, apart from Poonam Malakondaiah, to AP Medtech zone chief executive officer Jitender Kumar Sharma, chief secretary of the state government, medical & health department & vigilance & enforcement department.
The HC bench asked Poonam Malakondaiah & others to file their counter affidavits within three weeks & posted the case to a subsequent date three weeks later.
In his PIL, Murthy challenged the state government’s orders (GO No. 1645) on October 4, 2021, dropping action against Poonam Malakondaiah in the case of allegations of large-scale irregularities & misappropriation of National Health Mission funds & formation of AP MedTech Zone in Visakhapatnam.
He pointed out that the Vigilance & Enforcement department, which conducted an inquiry into the allegations following a direction from the state government on May 2, 2019, submitted interim report on September 12, 2019 stating that there was a prima-facie evidence regarding the large scale financial & procedural irregularities.
“Thereafter, the Regional Vigilance & Enforcement Officer, Visakhapatnam also submitted a detailed report on July 5, 2021 recommending disciplinary action against Poonam Malakondaiah, Jitender Sharma & others, who are responsible for all the irregularities,” he said.
However, the state government sought an explanation from Poonam Malakondaiah on the irregularities pointed out in the vigilance report.
On September 8, 2021, she submitted her version, denying all the allegations against her & requested the government to close the case.
Surprisingly, the state government considered her version & dropped further action against her & others on the ground that the director general of anti-corruption bureau certified in 2018 itself that the allegations against them were not proved.
The IAS officer could not be reached for comment
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