The Legislative Assembly secretariat is in the news again for all the wrong reasons.
It has now come to light that former Assembly speaker K B Koliwad, while vacating his official bungalow on Crescent Road, took with him expensive furniture that was supposed to have been returned to the Assembly secretariat. He has now offered to pay up.
Furniture marked with the Legislative Assembly Secretariat numberings were found in Koliwad’s private residence at Jarakabande Kaval in Bengaluru.
The furniture includes one medium-density fibreboard (MDF) king-size bed, a king-size board storage, two MDF beds and an Italian buffalo leather sofa set.
The secretariat, after taking stock of the furniture that Koliwad had been provided at his official bungalow during his stint as Speaker, wrote to him on July 4 about the furniture that he is required to return.
An embarrassed Koliwad wrote back to the secretariat on July 20, stating that he returned a massage chair and a pigeon box.
“For the rest, I will pay the price that they specify,” he stated in his letter addressed to Legislative Assembly secretary S Murthy.
“All Parliamentary functionaries are allotted official bungalows with furniture. After their term ends, they have to vacate the bungalow. They have the option of taking furniture with them or leave them behind. If they want to take the furniture, or if it is damaged, we ask them to pay. If they leave behind old furniture, we auction it. In this case, we wrote to Koliwad seeking to know if he wants to pay for the furniture he has taken or if he wants to return them,” Murthy told DH.
Apparently, Koliwad’s request to allow him to pay can be processed only after the Public Works Department fixes a price for the furniture. “Till then, we will not give Koliwad a no-objection certificate,” Murthy said.
Recently, the Assembly secretariat was embroiled in a controversy surrounding supply of expensive briefcases to newly-elected legislators. Murthy later clarified that the briefcases were not paid for and that they were returned following Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar’s direction. Murthy was also caught on video cutting a birthday cake inside the Assembly lounge, where such an act is prohibited. He later apologised.
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