Chandigarh, March 11
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has brought the free-travel facility and TA bills of 26 Haryana MLAs, including 12 ministers and chief parliamentary secretaries (CPS), under scanner for excess payment amounting to Rs 1.22 crore.

In its latest report tabled in the Vidhan Sabha today, the CAG said though 26 legislators had been paid Rs 2 lakh per annum for free-travel facility between April and June 2009, they were again paid for the same facility in the same financial year (2009-10) between November 2009 to February 2010.

The ministers and the CPS who were paid excess free-travel claim of Rs 2 lakh each included Ajay Yadav, Geeta Bhukkal, Randeep Surjewala, HS Chattha, Mahender Partap Singh, Parmvir Singh, Ram Kishan Fouji, Sharda Rathore, Dharambir Singh, Anita Yadav, Rao Dan Singh, Ram Kishan Gujjar. While another senior minister Kiran Choudhry was paid an excess amount of Rs 80,900, Leader of the Opposition Om Prakash Chautala was paid an excess amount of Rs 1,92,292.

The MLAs who were paid excess amount of Rs 2 lakh each included Venod Sharma, Anand Singh Dangi, Balbir Pal Shah, DK Bansal, Jagbir Singh Malik, Naresh Kumar Badli, Raghubir Singh Kadian, Rajinder Singh Joon, Subhash Chand, Savitri Jindal, Sumita Singh and Yadvendera Singh.

Surprisingly, 15 MLAs, including Geeta Bhukkal, Anita Yadav, Sharda Rathore and Anil Vij (BJP), raised TA bills for attending Vidhan Sabha sessions and meetings of various House committees during the same period during which they claimed free-travel facility amounting to Rs 23.2 lakh for visiting various places in the country. The Secretary, Vidhan Sabha, contended during a conference with representatives of AG that in respect of 14 MLAs there was clerical mistake because the word “journey performed by me” was not deleted in the certificate by the MLAs while submitting their claims as the actual journey was performed by their spouses and children.