Delhi court frames charges against DCW chief Swati Maliwal, others for illegal recruitments [Read Order]

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court has framed charges against Delhi Commission for Women Chairperson Swati Maliwal and three others for abusing their official position to obtain pecuniary advantages for ruling Aam Aadmi Party workers by making appointments of 71 officials and 16 others in the rights panel in violation of rules and the due process.

After going through the charge sheets and submissions, Special Judge (Prevention of Corruption Act) Dig Vinay Singh said a strong suspicion does arise against all the four and the facts do disclose prima facie sufficient material against DCW chairperson Maliwal and members Promila Gupta, Sarika Chaudhary and Farheen Malick for criminal conspiracy and other offences under the anti corruption law.

The court rejected a contention by the accused that the DCW was an autonomous body in creating posts and making recruitment of people of its choice, saying this falls flat from the very fact that DCW itself sought permission and sanction of the government for creation of posts.

"Perusing the minutes of the meetings held on various between February 26, 2016 to August 09, 2016 by DCW showed all the four accused were signatory to various decisions as to creation of posts/ appointments/ fixing and enhancing of remuneration and several persons were appointed. After all, none of the three accused besides A1 ever objected to or gave a dissenting note to the illegal appointments. Rather the decisions were claimed to have been arrived at unanimously in those meetings. There would be no apparent evidence of conspiracy available in most of the cases and it has to be gathered from the circumstances," the court said.

It is the case of prosecution that all the four accused persons in conspiracy with each other abused their official position and obtained pecuniary advantages for the party workers and acquaintances of Maliwal as well as the ruling party namely Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

"Most of the appointments were given to the near & dear ones of the accused persons / AAP party. Thus, it cannot be claimed by the accused that they did not abuse their position in order to obtain pecuniary advantages for other persons," the court said.

It was alleged that such workers and acquaintances were appointed to different posts of DCW without following the due process. Rather the appointments were made in contravention of procedures, Rules, Regulations, without even advertising for the posts, in violation of General Finance Rules (GFR) and other guidelines and that money was disbursed to various such persons towards remuneration / salary/ honorarium. In the process, legitimate right of deserving candidates was violated to favour a particular class of persons.

The probe by the ACB in the case was initiated on a complaint filed by Barkha Shukla Singh, an ex MLA.

[Read Order]