\'Reveal names of those who spoke against my behaviour\'

Rajan Walia, TNN, Mar 4, 2011, 06.14am IST





CHANDIGARH: Breaking his silence, former UT additional deputy commissioner Preetdev Singh Shergill has challenged Union minister Pawan Kumar Bansal to reveal the names of those officers who, he claimed, spoke about his tyrannical behaviour while dealing with the poor.



Shergill\'s report of inquiry into the alleged involvement of many administration officials and senior Congress leaders, including Bansal, in favouring ineligible candidates in getting booths in Sector-41 market has ruffled many a feather.



Speaking to TOI, the senior PCS officer from Punjab cadre countered Bansal\'s assertions which he had made through a media statement on Wednesday. Bansal had said, \"I always had reservations about Shergill as I was told by people that he acted like a petty tyrant with poor people who visited him for redressal of their genuine grievances, and hurled indignities on them, oblivious of his duties as a public servant in a democratic society.\" Sticking to the revelations made in the inquiry report, a defiant Shergill said, \"Let Bansal reveal the names of those senior officials, who, he claims, mentioned about my \'petty tyrant behaviour\' with public during my stay in Chandigarh. Instead, many a time, I have been awarded with \"outstanding performance\" certificates by these very senior officials during my seven-year-long deputation in Chandigarh.\"



Shergill added, \"I conducted inquiry into booth allotments and then compiled my report, without any favouritism or ill-will against any political party or official. I have done my bit. Now, I am awaiting the UT administrator\'s call on it.\"



Following the probe report indicting him in the booth allotment issue, on Wednesday Bansal had got back to Shergill saying, \"Since he now had the temerity and audacity to level wholly baseless, mendacious and malicious allegation about \'political funding\' by allottees, I am constrained to say that the same is not only baseless and mischievous but also the product of a sick mind. I cannot permit such a person with pronounced political bias to play with my reputation that I have built assiduously over the years.\"



On this, Shergill said, \"I am neither a politically-inclined person nor have any bias against any political person. I have done my duties to the best of my abilities as a responsible official. I have not directly blamed any person for any wrong-doing in this whole issue. In my report, I have recommended that an independent inquiry must be initiated to find out the final modes of spending this huge money allegedly collected out of booth allotments.\"

In his report, Shergill has also recommended that booth allotments in sector markets of 22, 15 and 19 may further be probed by an independent investigating agency to check if any such alleged illegal allotments have taken place.
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