Sunday, September 4 2005 17:48 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The CBI has sought sanction for prosecution of former Union Health Minister, C P Thakur, from the Centre for his alleged involvement in the abuse of his official position to allot a shop in a medical institute in Chandigarh.

After completing investigations into the case, the agency approached the Centre through Department of Personnel for sanction to prosecute Thakur, CBI sources said.

It filed a Preliminary Enquiry (PE) and later a regular case in which it alleged that in spite of expiration of the shop's lease in 1977, Thakur illegally allowed one Captain Parminder Singh to continue to occupy the shop at Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) at the 1970 rent of Rs. 360.

The FIR also alleges that Thakur formed a three-member committee in 1998 to legitimise the tender process, but favoured Singh even though two of its members had expressed their opinion against it.

Although PGIMER authorities realised it late, they called for fresh bidding for renting out the shop in the same year. Thakur constituted a three-member committee to take a decision on the matter, a move that raised many eyebrows.

The Committee Chairman favoured allotment of the shop to Capt Singh again, but two other members were opposed to it, sources said.

Curiously Thakur went ahead with the suggestion of the Committee Chairman and directed that the shop be re-allotted to Capt Singh and at a rent of Rs 59,890, which other shop-owners in the neighbourhood were paying.

Sources, however, said that rent was lower than what should have been levied because the size of the chemist shop run by Capt Singh was bigger than those compared with the adjoining ones.

A PIL was also filed in Punjab and Haryana High Court challenging former minister's decision. The court had also directed quashing of the lease and initiating fresh public auction.

The CBI had begun its probe in October 2002, when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government was in power. In 2004, the PE was converted into a regular case and Thakur and Singh were named as the accused.