Kejriwal smells rat in burning of files at secretariat

 Chief minister-designate Arvind Kejriwal said on Friday that he would order an inquiry into the burning of files in the Delhi secretariat just a day before his government was supposed to assume office. He hinted that the dumping of documents showed there was corruption in some departments.

“The safety of important official documents is the responsibility of the chief secretary,” said Kejriwal, while reacting to TV channels showing images of some papers and documents being shredded and burnt in some of the offices in the seat of the Delhi government.

"This (TV visual) shows there is large-scale corruption in these departments and officials who are seeking transfer are understood to have been involved in it," the AAP leader told reporters here.
 Officials in the secretariat, however, denied any malafide in the disposal of unwanted document.

“Discarding old documents before the new ministers move into office is a routine practice,” said a government official.

Some officials in the information and publicity department also discarded old documents. “There is nothing sensitive in our files even then we are following the practice of dumping old documents,” he said.

“The media is over reacting as it is after 15 years that a new government is assuming office and they have never seen such scenes in the last decade or so,” said the official. Kejriwal will be sworn in as the seventh chief minister of Delhi at a public ceremony at the Ramlila Ground on Saturday and is expected to move into the chief minister’s office in the secretariat within an hour.