The chairman of the Delhi Assembly’s Petitions Committee, Saurabh Bharadwaj, on Saturday accused Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal of permitting IAS officers to move the Delhi High Court against the Delhi Assembly panel instead of initiating inquiry into desilting “irregularities” as pointed out by the panel.

Addressing a press conference, Bharadwaj said the Committee had recommended an inquiry into alleged desilting irregularities in the Delhi government’s PWD department and Municipal Corporations of Delhi (MCDs).

However, he said, “the Chief Secretary and then PWD Secretary instead of agreeing to investigate serious charges of corruption, chose to challenge the Petitions Committee’s report in Delhi High Court.”

An MLA of the ruling AAP from Greater Kailash constituency, Bharadwaj said they have RTI replies revealing that the LG provided permission to these IAS officers to file cases in the high court against the Delhi Assembly panel.

Bharadwaj said the RTI replies also “expose huge payments to the advocates, who defended these IAS officers in corruption cases, were made from the government exchequer on LG’s instruction”.

During June-July last year, the Petitions Committee had inspected over one hundred drains across Delhi under the three MCDs and the PWD. The Committee members were accompanied by top officers of the PWD and three MCDs during their “surprise field visits”.

Bharadwaj said during the inspection it was found that most of the reports relating to desilting submitted by MCDs and PWD to the Assembly Committee as well as Delhi High Court were “fabricated and were far from reality”.

“The drains which were shown as 100 per cent desilted and cleaned were found overflowing with filth and garbage. The Assembly Committee had recommended Vigilance and ACB enquiry into this deep-rooted corruption,” he said.

“The Committee had also recommended action against the then PWD Secretary Ashwani Kumar but the LG chose not to take any action against the officer,” Bharadwaj alleged, adding that instead of punishing the officer the central govt “rewarded” Ashwani Kumar by promoting him as Chief Secretary of Puducherry.

The Delhi High Court had yesterday directed Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash and two other officers to appear before the Committees of Delhi Legislative Assembly, which had issued notices to them in this regard while warning them of contempt if they did not do so.