R.S. Gill
The news report of a lately noticed black sheep, among many, in J&K Administration, hogged the limelight since last Friday and speculations run rife as to who is this Bureaucrat who has been hitting the shots right, left and center? Widely reported news, quoting sources, said that the Jammu Kashmir Administration recovered Rs 39.69 lakh from a senior IAS officer that he allegedly took from an ‘organization'; that he returned the partial money when he was put on notice; and a probe was recommended into his alleged illegal monetary benefits. It was also reported that an amount of Rs 20,86,120 stood deducted as TDS in his account with the Income Tax department. The revelations of such a scandal left the J&K Administration grappling to deal with an embarrassing situation, which the sources said may result into shifting of the tainted officer out of J&K in next administrative reshuffle.
Strange are the ways of working in the J&K Administration where the transactions of such magnitude have been taking place so brazenly just as in a ‘Sabzi Mandi' without fear.
The worst part of the episode is that a state-owned Bank allegedly paid a whopping amount of Rs. 60 lakh to the Bureaucrat, in the guise of whatever nomenclature, being an ex-officio Director on the Board of Directors (BoD) out of which only Rs. 39.69 lakh could be recovered. The episode has demolished the credibility if left any, of the J&K Administration as well as the Bank in the eyes of people.
One fails to understand the constraints of the J&K UT Administration for concealing the name of the tainted officer while Administration swears in the name of transparency day in and day out.
With the cat already out of the bag, a deliberate attempt was made at the higher echelon to blackout the full facts of the malfeasance. Interestingly, the officer, in an attempt to send a message to his targeted quarters in MHA-New Delhi, did not hesitate in making his Domicile Certificate viral on social media, without sensing the provocations and political fallouts of his juvenile act in the valley, that has already made the center-aligned political element, administration and security apparatus embarrassed and on the defensive.
The malady first surfaced in October 2018 when the then Governor, Sh. Satya Pal Malik, after taking over the reign of the state, ordered the scrapping of controversial Group Medical Insurance contract for state employees that was awarded to Reliance General Insurance Company (RGIC) less than a month ago, terming the deal was “full of frauds.” The governor minced no word about the involvement of some top state officials in pushing the deal through in a “hush-hush manner” and stated that those found to be involved won't be spared.
The expensive contract was finalized and allotted in “haste” on October 1, despite strong opposition from state employees-led by the powerful secretariat employees' union.
It is pertinent to note that the Officer's wife is one of three promoters of three companies engaged in Insurance Marketing, Investment Consultancy, Hospitality and other allied businesses, operating from an address near the Garden Estate, Trikuta Nagar, Jammu.
The cancellation of the contract led to the public demand for a high-level probe to find those involved in the fraud, but the Bureaucrat was spared by his top boss in the Administration and is still being shielded. He was just shifted from the 2nd most important department of finance to other departments.
The issue of illegal money received by the bureaucrat is just another skeleton tumbled down from his cupboard. According to a well-placed source, the transaction pointed out by the Auditors, was brought into the notice of the present Board of Directors and BoD had asked the Bank to recover the amount and matter was also brought to the notice of the Lieutenant Governor, Mr. G C Murmu.
A senior officer of the administration has recommended a probe against the tainted officer as per the rules before imposing any penalty; recommended issuance of warning letter to the officer and closure of the case without informing the matter to the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), a source said.
Another source told that the LG took a serious note of hiding the issue of such grave misconduct and while overruling the recommendation for the closure of the case, in turn, ordered for reporting and probe by the DoPT, GoI.
Let us now forget who the black sheep is. But is it not a sad reflection on the government that it does not even share the name of the prime accused in high-level corruption mess or will it adopt its common practice of revealing or concealing names of tainted people whenever convenient and whenever it deemed expedient to do so?
No doubt, some officers of integrity in the government have demonstrated accountability over the public money, but then, the Raj Bhawan's handling of such a notorious issue sticks out like a sore thumb and does not jell with its professed practices.
