Efforts underway to protect 2 IAS officers

CVC, SVO files of 2 Commissioner-Secretaries tossed to Law Department

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Oct 16: Efforts are currently underway at Civil Secretariat to protect two senior IAS officers, both holding the rank of Commissioner-Secretary, from punitive actions of Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) and J&K State Vigilance Organisation.

In what is widely perceived to be a rescue operation, state bureaucracy has begun to toss files of two senior IAS officers from one department to another with the objective of blocking the CVC and SVO action against them. Top ranking sources in Law Department disclosed to Early Times that the Government had sought its views with regard to the controversy arising over the date of birth of a Commissioner-Secretary who has allegedly overstayed in service for four years and was reaching superannuation on 31-12-2011.

“We are nowhere in the picture. Had the government been serious in inquiring whether the IAS officer’s date of birth was real or fudged, it could have taken five minutes to conduct the verification with the result gazette of Matriculation at J&K Board of School Education. We fail to understand why such files are tossed between the office of Accountant General, GAD and Law Department at the Civil Secretariat”, a senior official said.

He further disclosed that in order to protect another IAS officer, who figured in a group of officials involved in one of SVO’s high profile investigations in Gulmarg, officials of Law Department were now “under strict instructions” to delay opinion in the matter of the prosecution of the IAS officer till he reaches superannuation on 30-11-2011. “This is clearly a signal to protect two IAS officers at the verge of their retirement in November and December 2011”, said the Law Department’s official.

Sources said that a powerful lobby of IAS officers was secretly digging the past of one Commissioner-Secretary who is retiring at the end of December 2011. Complaints being framed against him include acquisition of a hotel in the name of a relative on Srinagar-Airport Road besides waiving the probation period of the IAS officer’s daughter. It has been pointed out that only to grant undue benefit to the IAS officer’s daughter, probation period of less than a dozen Junior Engineers was reduced from the mandatory two years to one year in Power Development Department few years back.

Officials at GAD contended that probation period for all government employees stood fixed at two years and it would be a “clear case of misuse of official position” if anybody in the government has reduced the same to one year at the behest of any authority. They said that none of the bureaucrats was authorized to take or order such an action which was the exclusive prerogative of the state Cabinet. They insisted that Cabinet had never taken such a decision and the probation period in all departments stood fixed at two years.

As already reported in this newspaper, CVC has lately received a complaint with regard to the “surreptitious change” in the date of birth of an IAS officer of J&K cadre, holding the rank of Commissioner-Secretary, and the same has been forwarded to J&K Chief Secretary as well as Accountant General for verification. If contents of the complaint turn out to be true, the official has already overstayed in service for over four years. The IAS officer at the receiving end has reportedly claimed that he would “soon” establish with documentary evidence that his date of birth was “real and unchanged”. However, his Matriculation certificate is said to be “missing” and efforts are allegedly being made to remove the result notification and gazette of Matriculation examination of a particular year at J&K State Board of School Education.

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