Waquar Hasan | Clarion India
NEW DELHI — The Chairman of the Delhi Minority Commission (DMC), Zafarul Islam Khan, has accused the erstwhile secretary of the Commission and current CEO of the Delhi Waqf Board, Shamim Akhtar, of corruption, highhandedness, and misbehavior with officers. Hence, the commission has ordered an internal inquiry into this alleged embezzlement.
Khan also accused him of giving him and his colleague Kartar Singh Kochar death threats via phone calls. Providing Clarion india with the record of the phone call in which someone is heard abusing Khan and threatening to eliminate him and his son, Khan said that he has filed a police complaint at the Shaheen Bagh and Kochar at Vasant Kunj police stations.
According to Khan, Akhtar, who joined the Commission in September 2018, had been engaged in a number of illegal activities when he was the secretary. He forced junior officers, who were senior to him by age, to sign on wrong documents or files. If they refused to comply with his arbitrary orders, they were insulted and harassed.
“He came here last September and worked properly in the beginning. But gradually, started doing just the opposite of what he was supposed to do. Our Commission came into existence under an act, which said that there will be three members and one of them will be the chairman, which I am. The government appointed a secretary to help us, so ideally, he is supposed to help us and work under us. But, he started assuming that the Commission will work under his directives,” complained Khan.
Afterwards, he also reportedly started creating obstructions at work by withholding files or spoiling them, and subsequently, started working very arbitrarily. Khan said that although they had been tipped off regarding the rampant ongoing corruption, they lacked any evidence against him.
After getting annoyed by the behavior of Akhtar, in early May, Khan wrote to the chief secretary of Delhi government for a transfer. But it was a time when the model code of conduct was in place in the country due to the Lok Sabha elections, due to which the Chief Secretary told him to be tolerant until the period of code ended. But he did not get a transfer even after 25th May, when the code actually came to an end.
On 29th May, Khan summoned the accounts officer and demanded to know why the employees were getting full salary despite being absent.
“From now on, it should not happen and they should only be given a salary according to their attendance. I must see their attendance and tally their salary accordingly before it is transferred,” Khan reportedly told the accounts manager.
Khan wrote to the lieutenant general Anil Baijal the following day, claiming that he is done with Akhtar and that he can’t tolerate him anymore. If he is not removed, he wrote, the matter will be taken to the High Court. On May 31, therefore, Akhtar was transferred from the Delhi Commission to the Delhi Waqf Board.
“After his transfer, we uncovered some files which he had kept under wraps. The wrongdoings that we were blindly aware of, finally came to the fore. He was embezzling money and creating fake bills,” Khan said, adding that they have initiated an internal inquiry and have written to the LG to investigate the corruption by the high powered committee.
Khan alleged that Akhtar had created fake bills amounting 7 lakh rupees in a day. He signed many files arbitrarily, which were opposed by the deputy secretary, G S Rana and another officer, Sourabh Sing. He assigned someone to work with any tender and did not even follow any due process to assign someone such work.
Reacting to the allegations, Akhtar said that the charges against him are baseless and false. Citing the LG order, he said that it’s the secretary who is the head of the department of the Commission, not the chairperson.
“He is a politically-nominated person and can say anything. If you want, I will give you the order of the LG that the secretary is the HoD and not the DMC chairperson. It’s not a public dealing office at all. As far as highhandedness is concerned, he has crossed all limits by exercising administrative and financial powers, which he does not possess in reality, which can be confirmed by any staff here,” said Akhtar while talking to Caravan Daily.
Regarding the threat call, he claimed that it was not him and could have been anybody else.
