Annapurna Jha | New Delhi

The Delhi High Court has issued notice to the Prasar Bharati Board seeking its response to the Member (Finance) AK Jain’s petition against the board’s decision to vest powers of Chief Executive Officer to the nominated member — Additional Secretary in Information and Broadcasting Ministry Rajiv Takru — and divesting him of his powers and responsibility. The court on Wednesday(25-05-2011) asked the Board to respond within four weeks and fixed August 1 for the final disposal of the matter. 

Jain, who had earlier protested against his two years junior Takru being vested with the power and functions of CEO after BS Lalli’s suspension, approached the court against the Board’s February 3 decisions terming them “illegal and in contravention of the Prasar Bharati Act”. 

He has charged Board Chairperson Mrinal Pande, who is a part-time member, with violating the Act to take direct control and supervision of the day-to-day work of OSD thereby getting empowered to perform executive functions in violation of statutory provisions.

Asserting that under the Act the Board has no power to either appoint the CEO or to vest the powers of the CEO to a part-time member as a temporary or interim arrangement, Jain claimed that only a full time member can become CEO. He has urged the court to quash the board decisions assigning powers of the Member (Finance) to a three-member Empowered Committee on Finance, which has two part-time members and one Senior General Manager (Budget and Accounts) who was subordinate to Jain. 

Refuting the Board’s charge that he had neglected issues relating to accounts which were not in compliance with various audit norms and tax laws, Jain said these decisions are “arbitrary, illegal and malafide” and his version that the accounts were in compliance with statutory requirements and certified by CAG were not taken into account.

The decisions have “made the office of member finance dysfunctional while wrongly attributing responsibility for basic responsibilities for basic deficiencies in the working of financial system to him.” It was meant to “humiliate” me for trying to check corruption during the implementation of the Commonwealth Games project, he maintained. 

|||||| Thank you for your interest.||||||