Eying vacant slot of Chairman BOPEE, ex-IAS officer seeks Governor’s intervention

Enquiry against former Director of Tourism doesn’t see light of the day

State Times Report

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SRINAGAR, Nov 11: Months before retirement of his long time friend Ghulam Hassan Tantray as Chairman of The Jammu and Kashmir Board of Professional Entrance Examinations (BOPEE), and immediately after his own retirement as Commissioner-Secretary, one of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers is understood to have written a letter to Governor Narendar Nath Vohra. In the letter, the retired IAS officer, according to bureaucratic sources, has evaluated his own working as excellent and implored the Governor that the State Government should make the best use of his services post-retirement.

Lobbying for his appointment as Chairman BOPEE on retirement of Mr Tantray in October 2016, the ex-IAS officer has, however, failed to find much favour in Mehbooba Mufti’s government as many of the Cabinet Ministers have not been reportedly satisfied with his performance as Secretary and Commissioner-Secretary.

Knowledgeable sources told STATE TIMES that even Governor was not satisfied with the ex-IAS officer’s functioning on account of latter’s “personal agenda” and the treatment he had meted out to the public servants throughout his career.

In October, when Mr Tantray’s two-year term came to an end, Government asked him to hand over charge of Chairman BOPEE to the 1984 KAS officer, now in IAS, Hilal Ahmad Parray. Mr Parray, who is substantively holding the charge of Secretary Youth Services and Sports, was directed to hold it as additional charge. The retired IAS officer is reportedly still lobbying for his appointment as Chairman BOPEE.

Sources in bureaucracy revealed that the same ex-IAS officer, who had been appointed as Inquiry Officer by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s Government in June 2015 to investigate serious charges of corruption against the former Director of Tourism Talat parvez Rohella, submitted the inquiry report to General Administration Department towards the end of his service career in March 2016, months beyond its term.

Even as nobody has till date seen the inquiry report, sources insist that the ex-IAS officer has exonerated the accused KAS officer of all charges under influence of a retired Chief Secretary.

“From day one, everybody knew that it was an eyewash. It was simply a tactics to protect the accused. Had the Government then been serious, it would have appointed an independent bureaucrat as the inquiry officer and sought the findings within the stipulated period”, said a well-placed source. He claimed that till date the report had not been submitted even to Secretary Tourism on whose insistence Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s government had constituted the enquiry.

Interestingly, sometime back Mr Rohella was appointed as Director Floriculture under the administrative control of Secretary Tourism. However, within a short period, he was removed to the insignificant posting of Mission Director ICDS. Pending enquiry, he was not placed under suspension or attached on account of his political clout.

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[Published in STATE TIMES on November 12, 2016]