Nanaiah battles to clear 'defaulter' tag

[karira]

BANGALORE: Here is a case of information being furnished by a government department under the Right To Information (RTI) Act, without verification.

The department of personnel and administrative reforms (DPAR) furnished information sought by an RTI activist on dues owed by former ministers and legislators to the government.

The information released to the media said 49 politicians, including present three ministers — M P Prakash, H S Mahadeva Prasad and Alangur Srinivas — had failed to pay up dues, totalling to a whopping Rs 87.17 lakh. The list also included former minister M C Nanaiah of not having cleared Rs 96,236.

However, Nanaiah has said he did not owe any dues though he stayed in the official quarters after demitting office on August 10, 1999, for an extra “32 days”, extra only after seeking permission from the then CM J H Patel. He said that he resigned on August 10, 1999, when Patel chose to ally with BJP.

As per rules, a minister, who quits office, is allowed two months as grace period to vacate the quarters, after which they have to pay rent as per the market value.

“After resigning, the DPAR said I would be allotted a good room in the Legislators’ Home. I was also looking around for a house in Bangalore by which time the grace period ended on Oct 10. On Oct 5, I wrote to the CM seeking time till November-end,” Nanaiah said.

According to him, the DPAR was asked to charge only the nominal rent applicable to a minister for the additional 32 days and not Rs 2,800 per day. After he quit the house, a notice of pending dues was sent where the CM’s directive had not been taken into consideration.

He also took up the matter with then legislative council chairman V R Sudarshan, who endorsed the government’s directive. But the DPAR chose to remain silent. Nanaiah said he is now planning to initiate legal action against the DPAR for trying to portray him as a defaulter.

Nanaiah battles to clear 'defaulter' tag-Bangalore-Cities-The Times of India

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[karira]

This is the original news item to which Mr Nanaiah refers to about clearing his name:

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="98%" align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=articleheaderfont vAlign=bottom>Home Minister, 48 ex-ministers defaulters</TD></TR><TR><TD height=5></TD></TR><!-- ~~|ByLine|ArticleContentFont|height="5px"|byline|5 20|10| ~~--><TR><TD class=articleagencyfont>DH News Service, Bangalore: </TD></TR><TR><TD height=5></TD></TR><TR><TD class=articlecontentfont></TD></TR><TR><TD height=5></TD></TR><TR><TD class=overviewfont colSpan=2>Bheemappa Gundappa Gadada, a Right to Information (RTI) activist, brought to light the dreadful revelation that Home Minister M P Prakash, 48 former ministers and seven former legislators have defaulted the State Secretariat to the tune of Rs 1.11 crore in the last few years. </TD></TR><TR><TD height=5></TD></TR><!-- ~~|123Dop123|ArticleContentFont|height="5px"|DoP|5 20|10|~~ --><TR><TD class=ArticleContentFont>
Home Minister M P Prakash, 48 former ministers and seven former legislators have defaulted the State Secretariat to the tune of Rs 1.11 crore in the last few years.

It has come to light through Bheemappa Gundappa Gadada, a Right to Information (RTI) activist, who secured this information under RTI Act. Mr Bheemappa, in turn, circulated copies of the information to the media on Thursday.

According to the information furnished by Joint Secretary to the Secretariat P Omprakash, former minister Vijyanath Patil tops the list with dues of Rs 23,95,122 lakh, followed by B Somashekar with Rs 8,59,444 lakh.
M P Prakash, D Nagarajaiah, B Muniyappa Muddappa, Veerakumara A Patil, Baburao B Chinchansur, Basavaraj H Patil, H C Srikantaiah, M C Nanaiah and Allam Veerabhadrappa are among those whose dues exceed more than a lakh.

<TABLE style="FLOAT: right" valign="middle"><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=center></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Among the prominent leaders who have defaulted are former chief minister and leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly N Dharam Singh, KPCC President Mallikharjuna Kharge, leader of the Opposition in Legislative Council H K Patil, Roshan Baig and Chairman of Legislative Council B K Chandrashekar.

Though the Secretariat has initiated steps to recover dues of nine of them through their pensions, no concrete step has been taken with respect to others, except for writing letters to them to pay up, according to RTI documents.

The dues are mainly towards overstaying in government quarters (when they were ministers), telephone bills, water and electricity charges, missing or damage to articles in the quarters and others, Mr Bheemappa said.
As far as former legislators are concerned, M K Krishna Reddy, Muniyappa Muddappa and D Nagarajaiah are top defaulters with over Rs 2 lakh dues pending. Other former legislators are Alexander, Vasanth V Saliyan, M Shivanna and Diwakar Babu. While the Secretariat has taken steps to recover dues of four of them, the process is presently on to recover with respect to three others, documents stated.

Prakash defaulter
Home Minister M P Prakash has defaulted the Secretariat to the tune of Rs 1,53,089 lakh.
He has accumulated dues when he was deputy chief minister in the previous Dharam Singh government.

PROMINENT DEFAULTERS
*M P Prakash : Rs 1,53,089
*N Dharam Singh : Rs 20,789
*Mallikharjuna Kharge: Rs 21,370
*H K Patil: Rs 33,243
*B K Chandrashekar: Rs 89,118
*H C Srikantaiah: Rs 4,75,308
*M C Nanaiah : Rs 1,64,522

Deccan Herald - Home Minister, 48 ex-ministers defaulters

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