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indiantelevision.com Team
NEW Delhi: Arun Kumar Jain, Member (Finance), has once again run into trouble with the Prasar Bharati, with its Board recommending his removal.
A meeting of the Board is understood to have agreed on forwarding this proposal to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry. He has been charged with indiscipline.
However, since Jain is a member of the Indian Administrative Service in the 1977 batch from the Nagaland cadre, the proposal will have to go to the Department of Personnel and Training.
This is not the first time that Jain has run into trouble with the Board, since he has been consistently raising objections to the way finance is managed in the pubcaster.
He had been asked in March 2009 ? when B S Lalli was the chief executive officer - to go back to his parent cadre or quit the IAS. This happened after he had written a series of letters to the then CEO and other members about financial irregularities.
In June that year, the Delhi High Court stayed the Central Administrative Tribunal?s order directing Jain to either resign from IAS for absorption in the public broadcaster or revert to his parent cadre. Justice Veena Birabal passed the stay order on the petition of Jain challenging the verdict of the Tribunal.
Early last year soon after Rajiv Takru (Additional Secretary in the I&B Ministry) assumed charge after the suspension of Lalli, the Board decided to form a three-member finance committee to handle the financial matters of the pubcaster, and Jain was asked to cleaning up the internal accounts.
Following this, Jain had approached the Delhi High Court against the Board?s decision to divest him of his powers and vesting powers of CEO to the nominated member, Takru. Jain had said that the appointment of Takru, who is two years junior to Jain, was ?illegal and in contravention of the Prasar Bharati Act? as the Board has no powers to appoint a CEO.
The Court issued notice to the Board in May 2011, and the hearing is continuing, with the case coming up later this week.
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