LG suspends 6 babus for Rs 50 cr theft

 Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung has suspended six  government officials in the case of theft of seized goods worth Rs 50 crore from the sales tax office. 

Chief Secretary Sanjay Kumar Srivastava sent the suspension orders of these officials on Monday.

The incident was reported on May 10 at the sales tax office adjacent to Delhi Police headquarters. The LG also constituted a high-level committee to investigate and frame charges against the accused.

The suspended officials are Delhi and Andaman Nicobar Civil Services cadre officer Ashish Mohan, VAT officer Joginder Singh, Om Karan and VAT inspectors Pankaj Kumar, Ravindra Singh and Praveen Kumar. 

The committee headed by Principal Secretary (Home) Archana Arora will investigate the role of the accused officials and will submit a detailed report within a month.According to government sources, the heist was so well planned that investigators suspected the role of an insider. 

At the sales tax office, some 170 CCTV cameras are installed, but only 60 of them were functioning at the time of the incident. Investigators also failed to find any fingerprint in the crime scene.

“The valuable seized goods were lying unclaimed in the locker room at the 13th floor of the sales tax office. The goods were recovered from a hand cart near Old Delhi railway station, and only department officials knew about it,” a senior Delhi government official, who did not wish to be named, said.

 Pitambar Naitu, the security guard who was on duty at the time of the incident, had hanged himself on May 17. In a suicide note that he left, he said police tortured him during investigation, and also accused his seniors of falsely implicating him in the case.