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| Govt lacks will to sanction prosecution against 31 tainted IAS, KAS officers | | | early times report
JAMMU, Mar 25: In general opinion, it is more shameful for a government to be overcome by the forces of bribery. But, in J&K, which has been labelled as the second most corrupt state in the country, the corrupt are "protected" in the corridors of power without any regret.
This becomes evident from the fact that the successive state governments lacked will to take action against the 31 tained IAS and KAS officers who were found involved in scams and misappropriation of funds.
A massive Rs 300 cr scam was unearthed in JAKFED. Its probe was entrusted to senior IAS officer K B Pillai, who in 1999 submitted a voluminous report to the then chief minister Farooq Abdullah, substantiating the loot of fertilisers by a well organized mafia run by the JAKFED management in league with certain unscrupulous fertiliser dealers.
Pillal, in his report established the fake movement of fertilizers worth crores on the basis of the certificates given by the then excise commissioner M M Bhat that the trucks carrying fertiliser to Rajouri and Poonch districts never crossed Gandharvial toll post at Akhnoor and similarly, the trucks carrying fertiliser to the valley never crossed Nagrota and Banihal toll posts.
According to the Pillai report, the maximum misappropriation of fertiliser in JAKFED took place during the tenure of Mehboob Iqbal, Ravi Thussoo and N K Verma who served JAKFED as managing directors. Mehboob Iqbal also served JAKFED as its general manager. Pillai had expressed his deep anguish over the conduct of Thussoo who despite various communications had not provided him the record pertaining to misappropriation of fertiliser during his tenure and instead engineered a protest by the employees of JAKFED for stalling the functioning of the commission appointed by the government.
While concluding his report, Pillai observed that the scam of Rs 300 cr in JAKFED could not be without the active connivance of the management and recommended to thegovernment to start the process of termination of the
tainted employees howsoever high they might be.
No action was, however, taken against them. They were later inducted into IAS and all retired as commissioners/secretaries. Even after 12 years of the submission and acceptance of Pillai fact finding
report by the government, sanction was not granted for their prosecution. Another scam-tainted senior JAKFED employee was recommended for termination by the Pillai committee, but no action was taken against him too. He was still in JAKFED. Cooperatives minister Manohar Lal Sharma too has not bothered to initiate any action against this employee.
It seems as if SVO and crime branch too cannot move on their own to book the corrupt in the administration.
The SVO registered cases of graft against 1 S Malhi, Vijay Bakaya and few other senior bureaucrats but investigating officers were changed repeatedly and expert opinions were also obtained repeatedly so that they
were saved from prosecution. Patwaries and other middle rung officers were, however, the victims of SVO.
In an old case involving the former law minister and presently agriculture minister G H Mir against whom the SVO had established a case of making 53 illegal backdoor appointments in the state legal services authority,
sanction for his prosecution was not accorded by the government.
Even the present government headed by Omar Abdullah had not granted sanction to SVO to file chargesheet against Mir. The case of Mir was just the tip of the iceberg as evreybody knew that many cabinet ministers had cases registered against them in state accountability commission.
In reply to a RTI, SVO had in the recent past disclosed that there were 31 cases involving senior IAS/KAS officers against whom the cases had been established and request had been made to the GAD to accord sanction.
Prominent among those are Mehboob Iqbal, former chief secretary Ashok Kumar Jaitly, Ajit Kumar, the then principal secretary PDD, Mohinder Singh, Naseema Lanker, Harbhajan Singh, Tushar Kanti Sharma, Ghulam Nabi Ahanger,
Mohd. Rashid Din Kundangar, Baseer Ahmed Khan, Ghulam Hassan Khan and G N Bodha.
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