Andhra Pradesh high court issued notices to senior IAS officer and special chief secretary in the state government Poonam Malakondaiah in a case pertaining to alleged irregularities in the formation of AP MedTech Zone at Visakhapatnam and misappropriation of funds belonging to National Health Mission.
Acting on a public interest litigation petition filed by a senior journalist V Venkata Ramana Murthy, a division bench of the HC comprising chief justice Dheeraj Singh Thakur and judge justice R Raghunandan Rao issued notices, apart from Poonam Malakondaiah, to AP Medtech zone chief executive officer Jitender Kumar Sharma, chief secretary of the state government, medical and health department and vigilance and enforcement department.
The HC bench asked Poonam Malakondaiah and others to file their counter affidavits within three weeks and posted the case to a subsequent date three weeks later.
In his PIL, Murthy challenged the state government’s orders (GO No. 1645) on October 4, 2021, dropping action against Poonam Malakondaiah in the case of allegations of large-scale irregularities and misappropriation of National Health Mission funds and formation of AP MedTech Zone in Visakhapatnam.
He pointed out that the Vigilance and Enforcement department, which conducted an inquiry into the allegations following a direction from the state government on May 2, 2019, submitted interim report on September 12, 2019 stating that there was a prima-facie evidence regarding the large scale financial and procedural irregularities.
“Thereafter, the Regional Vigilance and Enforcement Officer, Visakhapatnam also submitted a detailed report on July 5, 2021 recommending disciplinary action against Poonam Malakondaiah, Jitender Sharma and others, who are responsible for all the irregularities,” he said.
However, the state government sought an explanation from Poonam Malakondaiah on the irregularities pointed out in the vigilance report.
On September 8, 2021, she submitted her version, denying all the allegations against her and requested the government to close the case.
Surprisingly, the state government considered her version and dropped further action against her and others on the ground that the director general of anti-corruption bureau certified in 2018 itself that the allegations against them were not proved.
The IAS officer could not be reached for comment
