Give VM Lal a suitable post: Court

In a temporary reprieve for senior bureaucrat VM Lal, the Bombay High Court
on Monday directed the state government to give him a “suitable” posting by August 1.

Lal, who has been posted at the Maharashtra Agricultural and Food Processing Corporation (Mafco), an undertaking with hardly 100 employees and little work, had urged for an interim order till the case concerning his transfer out of the Third Maharashtra Finance Commission and his posting to Mafco was heard.

A division bench comprising FI Rebello and VK Tahilramani also directed Lal to comply with a departmental inquiry for alleged financial misconduct.

On May 5, the government had challenged the order of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), which had set aside Lal’s transfer.

Admitting the petition, the HC granted an interim stay on the CAT order. Lal, who argued his own case, pleaded with the HC for an alternative posting till the case was decided. Lal is due to retire in October.

Advocate General Ravi Kadam said the government was willing to post him out of Mafco and consider the issue of unpaid salary for over four months if Lal agreed to comply with the departmental inquiry.

The inquiry had been quashed by the CAT on March 17. Lal had contended that the inquiry was an act of vendetta by CM Vilasrao Deshmukh who was upset with him for not allotting a plot of land to his son Amit.