DCW official heading Asha Kiran probe shunted out

The Lieutenant Governor’s (LG) Office removed Dilraj Kaur from the post of Member Secretary, Delhi Commission for Women (DCW), on Thursday. Kaur was heading the internal probe against DCW chief Swati Maliwal in the recruitment scam in the commission and was also investigating the case of 11 deaths in the Asha Kiran Home for mentally-challenged women and children.

IAS officer Garima Gupta, who is Director, Higher Education, and Secretary, Education, has been given the additional charge as Member Secretary of the women’s panel.  

LG Anil Baijal approved the transfer of the bureaucrat. Sources in the state government said Maliwal and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had wanted the official to be removed from the post, especially since the Asha Kiran Home case came into the limelight. Kaur was appointed as DCW Member Secretary on December 6 last year, after Kejriwal sought the removal of incumbent IAS officer Alka Dewan, terming her appointment “unconstitutional”.

Kejriwal had written to the then LG Najeeb Jung, saying: “It is shocking that the Member Secretary was recently appointed to DCW by you without her name being nominated by the elected government. The government had already nominated a certain name and without considering it, Alka Dewan was nominated to the post. The appointment is unconstitutional and against the order of Delhi High Court and the DCW Act.”  

Kaur, who was then Secretary, Social Welfare, was given the additional charge of Member Secretary in the women’s panel. She served for just three months before being transferred to the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC).  

The appointment of DCW Member Secretary has been a bone of contention between the AAP government and the LG’s Office for long, with Maliwal demanding an official of her own choice, the source said. Ever since a case was registered against Maliwal in the recruitment scam, she had been attacking Member Secretaries appointed by the LG; first Dewan and then Kaur.

In October last year, Maliwal had questioned the appointment of Dewan and alleged that the latter “refused to release two months’ salary to contractual staff”, thereby making them “pay the price of working on Saturdays and overtime”. She had pointed out that 52 of the staffers whose salaries had been withheld earned less than Rs 25,000. Only 10 of those earned more than Rs 35,000.

Dewan had refused to release the salaries after the Anti-Corruption Branch registered a case against Maliwal, on the complaint of former DCW Chief Barkha Shukla Singh, for “arbitrary appointment of contractual staff” in the commission. It has been alleged that Maliwal appointed 85 staffers without following recruitment rules. It has also been alleged that three of the commission’s members — Promila Gupta, Farheen Malik and Sarika Chaudhary — were full-time AAP workers.