Published On : Thu, Aug 29th, 2013

Two top NMC bosses feel heat over signatures put by unauthorized IT Officer

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The contract IT Officer Pravin Deshmukh had signed the documents in place of Estate Officer D D Jambhulkar. The reply and the documents, pertaining to an RTI query, are utterly short of information the RTI activist had sought. The outraged Additional Commissioner Hemant Pawar gave a dressing down to Appeal Officer Gaikwad for this illegal act. Pawar directed Gaikwad to either issue show cause notice to Jambhulkar for the grave lapse or he himself would issue show cause notice to Gaikwad.

 

Nagpur News:

The non-authorized signature episode in the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC), involving contract IT Officer Pravin Deshmukh, has snowballed into a major controversy.

The RTI activist Rajendra Bhende, taking the issue to top level, informed the Additional Commissioner Hemant Pawar that the contract IT Officer Pravin Deshmukh signed the documents in place of Estate Officer D D Jambhulkar. The reply and the documents, pertaining to an RTI query, are utterly short of information the RTI activist had sought. The outraged Additional Commissioner Hemant Pawar gave a dressing down to Appeal Officer Gaikwad for this illegal act. Pawar directed Gaikwad to either issue show cause notice to Jambhulkar for the grave lapse or he himself would issue show cause notice to Gaikwad.

With all these developments coming into the focus, the situation for the concerned top officials of NMC has turned red-hot and the heat is likely to grip the entire NMC Administration.

It may be recalled, the Nagpur Today had run a report on this dubious episode on August 28 titled: “NMC’s contract IT Officer jumps his powers, signs off documents despite no authority” and informing that an official on contract basis, was on signature spree in place of the competent authorities. According to rules, no contract official has powers to sign on any official document. However, the Information Technology Officer Pravin Deshmukh, who is employed as contract official, went on signing the documents sought under RTI and that too, totally different signatures from each other. This information was shared by the RTI activist Rajendra Bhende who was handed over the documents.

According to laid down rules, no contract official or temporary official and employees could put their signatures on the official documents. When the information under RTI is sought, the applicant is given the reply with necessary documents under the signature and seal of the concerned officials. However, the reply the NMC has given to Rajendra Bhende was neither complete nor the official. The reply and the documents would have been official had the concerned Information Officer Gaikwad signed and sealed the documents. The reply and the documents handed over to Rajendra Bhende contained signatures and seals of the contract employee IT Officer Pravin Deshmukh instead of Gaikwad under whom Deshmukh warks as an IT Officer.

Bhende had also charged that the reply given to his RTI query has been insufficient and he would go on appeal to the competent authority. Bhende had sought information regarding the approval given to every department’s computer software created in accordance with the department’s requirements.

Ironically, Pravin Deshmukh puts his signature on almost all documents and, the signatures are totally different from each other thus creating confusion among the citizens.