We take judicial notice of the number of Public Interest Litigations filed in this Court complaining that Jharkhand State is flooded with different type of scams. One of those is Bitumen scam, for which the instant Public Interest Litigation has been filed. It has been brought to our notice that in the matter of procurement of Bitumen there is large scale of irregularities and embezzlement not less than 100 crores of Rupees by the Engineers, Contractors and other persons having vested interest. It is stated that the Chief Engineer of various Zones have found various irregularities in the matter of procurement of Bitumen.

2. In paragraph No.11 of the Writ Petition various irregularities have been pointed out which reads as under:-

“That it is further stated that, the case of Kandra-Saraikela road and Adityapur-Kandra road is and eye opener to this Bitumen purchase scam, and the respondent No.6 & 7 have found the following irregularities. These two roads in Jamshedpur ( industrial area) have been taken up by the State Govt. for widening and strengthening at the total cost of 36 crores but unfortunately maximum money has been looted by the contractor,-politicians-engineers of the State. In fact, the irregularities are serious in nature:-

(a) It is found that, the contractors have utilized invoices for the purchase of Bitumen, has not at all issued to them by the engineers.

(b) It is found that the authority letter for lifting bitumen was issued only for 2,500 M.T. by the department and the estimate was only for 5000 M.T., but surprisingly the utilization was shown for the 5,183421 M.T. much more than the estimate quantity. (c) The excess utilization shown by the contractor-engineer is doubtful, fake and meant for embezzlement of money.

(d) The main source of embezzlement is utilization of invoices which is meant for Orissa has been shown to have been utilized in Jharkhand.

3. The petitioner has annexed a letter bearing Memo no. Finance/A.G.(L.P.)-29/07-215 dated 22.11.2008 issued by Secretary, Finance, Govt. of Jharkhand addressed to the Secretary Road Construction Department informing about the embezzlement of money. The letter of the Secretary ,Finance reads as under :-

“Presak, Rajbala Verma, Sarkar Ke Sachib Seva Me, Sachiv, Path Nirman Bhivag, Jharkhand, Ranchi Vishay: Path Nirman Ke liye Bitumen Procurement in Jalsaji, aniyamitata avam Rashi ka gaban. Mahasay, Mahalekhakar (Lekha Pariksha) Ke dwara Procurement of Bitumen for Road works karya me vitya aniyamitata, rashi gaban avam jalsaji sambandhi ek vistrit ankekshan kandika ke madhyam se path nirman bhivag ko prativedan preshit kiya gaya hai. Eske mukhya bindu nimnankit hai:-

1. In 15 divisions, Rs. 6.74 crore was paid as cost of bitumen against 308 invoice codes in support of purchase of 3,824.199 MT bitumen.

2. Rupees 36.86 lakh was paid to a contractor against 22 invoices bearing identical invoice code in support of purchase of 199.694 MT bitumen for utilization in two works executed under two divisions.

3. A contractor was paid Rs. 29.60 lakh against 17 fake invoices issued to another contractor. Further, the invoice code appearing on five copies were stated to be issued for sale of kerosene oil.

4. Two contractors under the same division, engaged in two works, were paid Rs. 26.16 lakh on submission of 16 invoices bearing identical invoice code. However, concerned oil company confirmed non-issue of invoice bearing that particular code.

5. In nine divisions, Rs. 2.26 crore was paid as cost of 10674.167 MT bitumen against 119 invoices bearing different alpha-numeric codes not consistent with coding system prevalent in IOCL.

6. Rupees 6.15 crore was paid against reported procurement of 3296.94 MT bitumen against 352 invoices bearing customer and product codes different from those used by HPCL.

7. A contractor was paid Rs. 8.42 crore for procurement of 4898.08 MT bitumen against invoices issued in the name of another contractor. Further payment was also made against