Indian Express 30.09.2009

HC shows the door to 799 ‘illegal’ staff of MCD library

Hardayal Municipal Public Library Praveen Khanna

Seven hundred and ninety-nine “illegal” employees of Hardayal Municipal Public Library, the Capital’s oldest library, have finally been shown the door after the Delhi High Court dismissed petitions filed by a section of employees.

The High Court called the mass appointment of these employees by then honorary secretary Ashok Jain “stinking, conceived in fraud and delivered in deceit”.

The decision to axe them would save the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) about Rs 7 crore annually.

Justice Sunil Gaur dismissed petitions of 96 ousted employees who claimed “individual innocence” about illegality of their selection. “Individual innocence has no place as fraud unravels everything,” he observed in a recent judgment. “The only proper course open to us is to set aside the entire selection.”

The court also directed the library to “compensate” within four months employees who possessed the required qualifications for their posts and had worked sincerely during their tenure.

There were violent protests after a High Court-ordered inquiry by retired Additional District and Sessions Judge G P Thareja in July 2009 found that Jain had fraudulently appointed 799 employees, from ages 15 to 50, towards non-existent permanent, temporary and contractual posts in the library. The appointments, between April 2006 and June 2007, were made with zero budgetary provision or sanction.

The allocation of funds for expenditure of the library is made in the House of MCD,” Justice Gaur observed.

“There is nothing on record to show that any budget was prepared or financial sanction of MCD was taken prior to making appointments. An assessment of the financial implications of appointments indicates that there would be recurring expenditure of Rs 6 to 7 crore per year.

“There is no sanction from the Finance Department of the MCD for such expenditure.” The inquiry found that the new ‘employees’ did not get their salaries during 2006-2007 due to lack of funds.

Finance records revealed that MCD had given only the usual annual grant of Rs 1.1 crore for that fiscal, proving that no extra budgetary allocation was made.

The library, though, had hiked its annual budget demand to Rs 9 crore for the next year, 2007-2008.

Library facts
The library was set up in 1862 in Chandni Chowk and has 31 branches and over 1.5 lakh books in stock. Initially set up in the Town Hall, it was shifted to the present building and named after Lord Hardinge to commemorate his escape from a bomb attack at Chandni Chowk in 1912. In 1970, its name was changed to Hardayal Library, in honour of Lala Hardayal, who led the bomb attack on Lord Hardinge.