Wednesday | May 21 2025 | 02:57:38 PM
New Delhi, August 18
The Delhi Lieutenant Governor (L-G) has written to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) seeking action against the Delhi Health and Family Welfare Special Secretary Udit Prakash Rai for allegedly taking a bribe of Rs 50 lakhs.
The case pertains to Rai allegedly giving undue favours to an Executive Engineer in the Delhi Agricultural Marketing Board (DAMB) by diluting two corruption cases against him.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has indicted Rai for indulging in “misconduct”, following which LG VK Saxena made the recommendations for issuing action on the Rai.
The statement from the LG office said, “The L-G has made this recommendation to the MHA on the basis of substantiated recommendation made by the CBI in a matter where Prakash (Rai) allegedly took a bribe of Rs 50 lakh for extending undue favours to an Executive Engineer, P S Meena… by diluting punishment against him in two cases of corruption”.
J S Sharma had filed a complaint in February 2020, when Rai was serving as vice-chairman of DAMB. Officials said the two cases against Meena involved his son and his wife.
As per the case details, in the first case, a retired IAS officer had in January 2021 recommended “major penalty/dismissal from service” against Meena. Rai had reportedly issued a “censure” against Meena on the last day of his posting as the DAMB V-C, and Meena submitted his reply the same day.
In the second case, Rai did not conduct an inquiry and ordered “punishment of censure” against Meena, clubbing it with the first case and noting that the two cases were similar. The CBI recorded these “deliberate lapses” by Prakash in a letter to former Chief Secretary Vijay Dev based on which the LG’s office have written to the MHA for initiating action.
