Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister
Mayawati on Thursday said her government will extend full support to
CBI in its probe into the multi-crore foodgrain scam.
"The Chief Minister has said that her government will
extend full cooperation to the CBI probing foodgrain scam on
the order issued by the Lucknow bench (of the Allahabad High
Court) on December 3," Principal Secretary (Information) Vijay
Shanker Pandey told reporters while reading out Mayawati`s
statement.
The CM has said that the state government is committed
to ensure strict punishment to all those involved in the scam
and will comply with the HC order, he said.
"The CM has asked all the agencies probing the scam to
complete the inquiry within the set time frame so that guilty
could be punished," Pandey said.
"All the agencies concerned have been directed to
provide required documents to the CBI," he added.
Immediately after coming to the power the CM handed
over the inquiry into foodgrain scam to Special Investigation
Team (SIT), the principal secretary said.
"When during SIT probe it was detected that foodgrain
was diverted to other countries also, keeping in view its
inter-state and national perspective the state government
recommended a CBI probe in December 2007," he said.
He, however, said that Department of Personnel and
Training informed the state government in March 2008 that as
the expanse of the issue was very big, CBI will not be able to
probe it and the state should get it inquired.
Pandey said that in between some writ petitions were
filed in the HC and whatever orders were passed were complied
with.
He said that on December 19, 2007 the HC stated that
foodgrain irregularities in 2002-03 and 2003-04 were minor.
"Serious cases of irregularities were detected between
March 2004 to October 2005 and the CBI took over the probe of
nine big cases pertaining to Ballia and Lakhimpur on November
3, 2009," he said.
While CBI probed cases in Ballia, Sitapur and
Lakhimpur, in other districts inquiry was carried out by
different state agencies including SIT, EOW and food cell.
Since 2001 the total foodgrain allocation to UP under
various schemes including Sampoorn Gramin Rozgar Yojna, BPL
and mid-day meal scheme did not exceeded more than Rs 2,000
crore per annum, he said.
As per the HC order probe into foodgrain scam in
Gonda, Varanasi and Lucknow has also been handed over to the
CBI, he said.
PTI
