Court seeks report on graft complaint against CM, others

A magisterial court on Friday asked police to give an action-taken-report on a complaint against Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit and transport minister Arvinder Singh Lovely for alleged corruption in granting fitness certificate to commercial vehicles.

Metropolitan magistrate Neeraj Gaur asked anti-corruption branch to file the report by July 4, detailing the steps it has taken on the complaint filed by an RTI activist Vivek Garg.

Besides Dikshit and Lovely, the complaint also named former transport commissioner R K Verma and a company which was granted contract for lane tests of commercial vehicles, M/s ESP India.

Vivek Gupta, counsel for Garg, told the court that Delhi government gave the contract for issuing fitness certificate to a private firm without inviting any tender.

"Due to corrupt and malafide intentions of the said ministers (Dikshit and Lovely), officer (R K Verma) and company (ESP India), no tender bid was called and the contract was given in contravention of the law," Garg said in his complaint.

The complainant added, “I and C lane test is annually done for all commercial vehicles registered in Delhi. Vehicles which clear this test are given fitness certificates.”

Earlier the whole process was being done by the transport department but now the lane test is done by the said private company for Rs 400 per vehicle, which is not shared with the government, said Garg. After the vehicle clears this test, transport department issues a fitness certificate for which a separate fees of Rs 100 is charged from each commercial vehicle.

"The complainant told the court that despite the premises being used for the lane test by the company belonging to the transport department and the entire payment for machines and other infrastructure being made by the government, the revenue generated by the private firm is not shared with the state.