Meghalaya Lokayukta appointed serving officials to avoid extra expenditure: CM

Amid the row over the removal of Meghalaya Lokayukta officials escalating, speaking on the issue, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma today clarified that the appointment of serving officers is as per rules and procedures and to ensure there is no additional expenditure to the government.

Speaking to media, CM Sangma said that the government had already clarified many times, the provisions under which the officials were earlier appointed.

He informed rules were not followed since it was a temporary arrangement due to a shortage of officials at the time.

“The provisions under which the previous directors of inquiry were appointed, were not followed in the sense that it was a temporary solution since we needed to immediately start the work. We had a shortage of officials working. Because one has to be an officer of the Secretary level and above, we decided then that as a temporary arrangement to go for a retired officer which is not as per the rules. Hence to rectify that and to regularise that we have followed the rule which said that one has to be an officer of the rank of the Secretary,” CM Sangma said.

“The second point is that when we appoint a person who is retired then the government has to take additional expenditure. For a serving officer, there is no additional expenditure as he/she gets a salary. But if it is a retired person, we have to spend from our own side. Hence it was in the interest of the rules to be followed and in the interest of the expenditure for the state that this post be regularised. We were working on it to regularise much before this but then it took us about a year and a half almost but we have regularised the process so this is purely as per the rules and procedures that we need to follow,” CM Sangma added.

Meanwhile, Voice of the Peoples Party (VPP) has decided to suspend its agitation after the state government assured to hold discussion with them on the issue.

Asked when he would invite the leaders of the opposition party, the Chief Minister said the State government is open to meet anyone.