Indian Babus

2008-05-27T17:20:00.004+05:30

Mr Tulsidas is an IAS officer who has in the past raised a lot of storm for all the wrong reasons. Not much known for integrity, Mr Tulsidas has bullied organisations, and employees to get his own way wherever he went. But what he did on the last day of his retirement from National Aviation Company of India Ltd (NACIL) has angered everyone from the employees to the politicians to the press.
On the last day in office before his retirement, he gave out-of-turn promotions to his favoured employees so as to help him later after retirement. Knowing fully well that such policy decisions should not be taken on the last day in office, Mr Tulsidas went ahead against all opposition flouting all rules.

He could have probably settled quietly after this for retirement. But his past caught up with him. Angered by his bullying ways, the employees of the NACIL waited for his retirement and then released to the press some vital information of his misdeeds.

According to records obtained by The Indian Express and airline sources, the former IAS officer has flown on at least 12 free tickets while his wife has done five of those free journeys with him — all on executive or business class, after he retired on March 31 when he is not entitled to free tickets.

Thulasidas, who flew Indian to New Delhi from Mumbai on one of those free tickets today, is due to fly back on another free ticket on Tuesday, which would take the total number of free tickets used by the couple after his retirement to at least 18.

Further, under a reciprocal arrangement Air India has with private carrier Jet Airways — which allows some executives of the two airlines to fly free on each others’ flights — the couple flew Mumbai-London- Mumbai in premiere class on Jet, with the onward journey being made on May 18 and returned on May 25.

No former CMD is known to have done this in the recent past, particularly after a Delhi High Court order that prohibited this kind of post-retirement benefits which an employee creates for himself while in power. It is interesting to note that apart from the employeeds of Indian Airlines and Air India, it is only the IAS officers who have till date acquired the post of CMD on deputation. And though non-IAS CMDs have never challenged the verdict of the High Court, the IAS officers have always tried to circumvent the order of the High Court. Earlier another IAS officer PC Sen who was the CMD between 1994 and 1998 had challenged the court order. But it failed. Then the IAS officers in the Ministry of Civil Aviation tried to delay the Government Notification but finally under intense pressure the Central Government notification had to released.

Ten years have passed since then. What made Mr Tulsidas do such a thing now? People say that it was because he thought he would get away with all this as his friends in the IAS who are sitting in the Ministry of Civil Aviation would help him out if he ever gets caught.

Why after 60 years of independence, the IAS is still chosen for the top posts when it has been seen that non-IAS CMDs in most public sector undertakings have performed better and with more integrity? Government should not allow IAS to sit at top posts in any organization particularly if the Secretary to the concerned Ministry is also an IAS officer. A IAS Secretary and a non-IAS secretary will make nepotism, chicanery and machinations difficult and keep the organization clean. But can any government take such bold measures?

Read Original Article in The Times of India

2008-05-21T10:02:00.001+05:30

58 IAS officers in UP are facing corruption charges. Faced by an imminent danger of serious action by government, the Central IAS association has recommended that an enquiry be made by the CVC. What is the fate of this so called enquiry? CVC is full of IAS officers. Would they enquire against themselves and incriminate themselves? The IAS association could have well chosen the CBI for enquiry. But they did not do so. Why? Because CBI is a police organization and they do not conduct just simple enquiries but conduct thorough rigorous investigations. The CVC after its enquiry will submit a report to the government where the IAS will again have a say in deciding what to do with the report. CBI on the other hand would submit its report to the court where the IAS will have no power to manipulate things. The IAS knows what an enquiry by CBI means.

Neera Yadav, IAS of UP cadre had amassed huge wealth when she was Chairperson of NOIDA. attempts at investigation into her case was successfully thwarted for a very long time. With their connections in the right places, the IAS is capable at pointing fingers at others while themselves escaping prosecution.

Mr Gurnal Singh Pirzada an IAS officer of the 1982 batch had amassed a huge wealth and flouted all government rules to sanction land lease to a company. The case attaracted media attention and Punjab CM had to order a CBI enquiry. The CBI quickly unearthed all the necessary evidence and chargesheeted the officer. Such swift investigation by officers who are not IAS is not desirable to IAS. So the IAS association decided to take to convoluted route of an enquiry by the CVC.

Ajit Mohan Sharan (right) MD of Haryana Finance Corporation is a senior IAS officer who was booked by CBI after a long list of complaints of siphoning government money to personal use. The IAS lobby tried to save him but when CBI investigation started, they had to keep quite.

Corruption is so rampant in the IAS and so institutionalized now that IAS officers in various enquiry bodies, all help each other from prosecution. At the same time, if any IAS officer is found honest, the entire IAS lobby goes against the man with full force. MN Vijaykumar of Karnataka is one such officer. His honesty attracted the wrath of even the Chief Secretary and the later stooped low enough to threaten Vijaykumar’s wife on phone the way underworld dons do in Mumbai. According to Smt Jayashree the wife of Vijaykumar, the Chief Secretary expressly told her that “ …the persons against whom we are fighting would decimate us”.

Cases of such organized corruption have been reported from Orrisa, Karnataka, UP, Maharastra, Punjab and AP. Cases of siphoning government funds for personal use is so rampant amongst the IAS that in Manipur the insurgents had threatened to take action if a certain officer does not “ come out clean” on corruption charges against him.

One of the main reasons why left extremism is taking root in many parts of the country is that money coming from State headquarters and Centre under various developmental schemes is not reaching the poor. Late PM Rajiv Gandhi had expressed in the 80s that out of every Rupee sent under development schemes, 85 paise is pocketed by the middle-men (including the IAS) Natuarally when the poor do not find ways of registering their grievances, they resort to supporting the Naxalites, Maoists etc.

The Government of Karnataka has recently started a Remote Area Development Fund, which is supposed to develop areas affected by Naxalite menace. Yet locals have many a times told the press that they are totally unaware of any such fund. The Fund which is under the District Commissioner is used arbitrarily and it has been found that most District Commissioners have not even visited these villages.

God save the country from the IAS!

2008-05-21T09:51:00.003+05:30

This Interview had appeared in The Tribune:

Sharat Pradhan, 50, is a newsmaker in the real sense. Known for his tireless campaign in exposing corruption, this time he is in the limelight for being the whistleblower leading to the CBI raids against the consensually most corrupt IAS officer of Uttar Pradesh, Akhand Pratap Singh. Now a freelance journalist associated with several international and national news agencies as well as the rediff., Sharat is not one to rest on his laurels. He speaks to The Sunday Tribune in Lucknow on his crusade against corruption.

Excerpts:

Q: Why did you think of taking the then Chief Secretary Akhand Pratap Singh to court?
A: I have consistently written against corruption. Unless we have zero per cent tolerance for corruption, things will not change. For me, A.P. Singh happens to be the latest target. But he is certainly not the last.

Q: Did you have to go to the court in any other case as well?
A: No, in some cases like that of B.B. Jindal, just my writing made things work. An inquiry was instituted and the man was removed. But others were hard nuts to crack. The other challenging case I fought was of the then director of Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute, Dr B.B. Sethi. For that case also, I had to approach the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Q: Tell us more about it.
A: Well, this man was a reputed psychiatrist and head of the then newly set up SGPGI. He was involved in massive corruption. When I started exposing the deals, he charged me with blackmail and set up a defamation case against me for Rs 20 lakh in the mid-eighties. Interestingly, no one was ready to touch him as he had contacts in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
The general impression amongst the high and the mighty was that he had treated Rahul and Priyanka and had direct access to the Prime Minister. To get impunity for his conduct he had probably created this myth. Once I was accompanying Rajiv Gandhi on one of his Amethi trips. I told him that there was this doctor heading the institution named after his late brother indulging in all sorts of malpractices and getting away with them by creating the impression that he was treating his children. He asked papers and I offered my clippings. But before he could act, elections were declared and V.P. Singh came in his place. I then met Bhure Lal who pursued the matter and finally there was a CBI raid. Incidentally, I was awarded the best story award for those stories by the Times of India.

Q: How did this campaign against A.P. Singh begin?
A: I didn’t start it. I simply pursued it to its logical conclusion. The initiative came from his peer group, the IAS Association that voted him as one of the three most corrupt IAS officers in 1997. There was no law then that I could have applied. But the moment he received an extension while a Government of India’s request to initiate a CBI inquiry was pending against him in the Chief Minister’s office, there was a specific law that had been violated and provided grounds for me to approach the court. The law is very clear. Extensions should normally not be granted. And if it is, the government should ensure that the officer’s service record is exemplary and his image is clean. This officer had a vigilance inquiry shelved and a request for CBI inquiry pending. I remember Justice Hegde’s remark in the court: "Why couldn’t the Uttar Pradesh government find another officer?

Q: Taking such a mighty person to court is a daunting task indeed. Any fears?
A: My family really faced a lot. My son was mortally scared of coming to harm. The other day when the camera teams arrived to get my bite on the whole episode, my wife got mortally scared and could relax only when she saw me with them.

Q: What happened in the court?
A: That’s another interesting story. I literally begged with Mr Shanti Bhushan to take up this case. His son Prashant was convinced of the merit of the case but wanted me to convince his father. The senior Bhushan said that as corruption was so rampant in Uttar Pradesh what was so special about this particular person? He probably also wanted to check my credentials. Finally when he was convinced he took it up as a personal matter, appeared in person and did not charge a single pie. In any case I was in no position to hire such a reputed lawyer. My plea was simple. I had questioned the extension and demanded a CBI inquiry into the allegations of corruption and disproportionate assets against Mr Singh.
It was an indefensible case from the word go. I have reasons to believe that when things became really sticky, the PMO had indicated that the officer should resign to save both the Central government and the state government from further embarrassment.
On the eve of the third hearing, while I was preparing to take the night train to New Delhi I hear that the Chief Secretary has suddenly put in his papers. I actually missed the train that night and had to take the morning flight. With Mr Singh’s resignation the case became infructuous and I was asked to take the demand for the CBI inquiry to the High Court and the petition was withdrawn.

Q: The battle was only half won. Why did you not approach the High Court then?
A: The Judge handling public interest litigation cases at the Allahabad High Court at that time was known to me and would not have heard my case so I was waiting. But before I could embark upon the next stage I was embroiled on a different front.

Q: What was that?
A: On the request of a sitting BJP MLA and former minister Rajendra Pratap Singh, an income-tax inquiry was instituted against me. And the income-tax officer in-charge was Bhartendu Pratap Singh, son-in-law of A.P. Singh! For months I was harassed. On a daily basis IT officials interrogated my bank. They asked me to furnish six-year-old records. All the newspapers and agencies for which I write were made to furnish my income-tax record. Fortunately, our payments are made by cheque. So it was not a big deal but it was a huge bother. Around this time, the local edition of a national paper for which I wrote a weekly column was put under the IT scanner and finally my column was dropped. The very next day their cases were similarly closed.

Q: What did you do then?
A: Suddenly it struck me that my entire energy was being spent in fighting a meaningless battle. That is when I decided to write to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who had by then made known his distaste for corruption. I followed it up at his office. In fact, I also briefed Rahul Gandhi on one of his trips to Amethi. He heard the whole matter and took the papers.

Q: How does it feel now?
A: My confidence in the system has been restored. If one is consistent in one’s effort and follows it up with perseverance nothing is insurmountable. As a journalist, I think I have fulfilled my role. We are not mere stenographers who will hear and write. We have to be activists to uphold the values of our profession.

2008-05-03T20:27:00.002+05:30

The babus of India have once again risen to reinforce their dictatorial stronghold on the nation, this time with a new weapon in their arsenal : the 6th Pay Commission. If the recommendation of this commission are implemented then not only the position of every other civil service (like the IPS, IRS, Railway Services, etc) will be undermined but the babus will emerge also as the sole decision makers in the country, even above the elected representatives of the people.

If the recommendations of the Commission are implemented, this would make life difficult for officers of all other services, particularly when they come out for central deputation posts at the secretariat. They will have now to work under their juniors in the IAS. Naturally most officers would not like to join the secretariat and hence the babus will be the sole decision makers there. Ministers who come for five years will have no choice but to listen to what the long-standing babus say. Thus in practice babus will continue to rule the country without being answerable to the electorate.

Now that the parties at the centre are busy developing their strategies for a possible national election in 2009 and most states like Karnataka are likely to have state elections too, the time is ripe for the babus to get the recommendations implemented clandestinely. In any case most semi-literate politicians of the country do not understand the nitty-gritty of the recommendations made by the various commissions. And now they have hardly much time to go through the voluminous recommendations of the 6th Pay Commission. In fact so lackadaisical was the response of the Union Government that when members of various services expressed their discontent with the Commission and some even threatened to stage a protest march from India Gate to PM’s residence, the Union Government decided to constitute a review committee. Cabinet secretary was asked to select members for the committee. The later being an IAS himself carefully selected only IAS officers for the committee. The Home Minister blindly signed what the Cabinet secretary put before him. “What is the point of appointing a review committee of IAS officers where the allegations are all against the IAS?” pointed out the other services. Point well taken. The Home Minister now formed another review committee with wider representation from various services. What is the representation like? Well 12 IAS officers and 1 IPS officers in a committee of 13. If this is representation, somebody may please define sanity.

Finding the Union Government and its ministers quite hopeless, the officers of the various services have now decided to knock at doors of Supreme Court.

While Supreme Court takes a final decision in the matter, let us now see what the babus had done in the 6th Pay Commission.

The Commission says that IAS officer should be paid more than the other officers. Why? Because IAS officers have to spend initial period of their service in remote areas and hence they should be compensated for such difficult postings. In other words, according to the Commission, every district headquarter in the country is a remote area; more remote than even the borders of India where the army and the paramilitary forces operate; more remote than even the reserve forests where officers of the Forest Service or Police often have to work. Oblivious of the plight of the police, paramilitary forces and the defense services, the babus have recommended higher pay only for themselves.

Army vehicles plying on bordering area in Jammu and Kashmir. According to Pay Commission, these hostile areas are not sufficiently remote to merit extra pay but district head quarters where IAS officers sit are. So the Pay Commission has recommended higher pay for the IAS and not the army or the paramilitary forces.

Naturally the police and army are grumbling. The Army Chiefs and later the members of the IPS association have met the Prime Minister to express their discontent. This is quite historic as for the first time officers of the uniformed services have shown such open discontent. Legendary ex-Army chiefs like General Choudhari and Malik have written open letters to the PM against the commission.

General VP Malik, a highly decorated officer of the army has criticised the Government's move of belittling the armed forces in comparision to the IAS. If this continues, it would not be long when independent India would see its first army-paramilitary revolt.

The truth is that most of the remote districts like those in Bastar, the entire Jammu and Kashmir, most parts of Bihar and Orissa are not manned by the IAS but are left to be managed by promoted state service officers. This is not true for IPS. In fact most difficult naxal affected areas, terrorist infested districts are manned by direct and young IPS officers. Younger officers in the defense services also do not have much choices and serve a large part of their life in difficult terrains.

The Commission has also recommended that Indian Foreign Service Officers should be given the same pay as the IAS. But Foreign Service Officers do not work in remote underdeveloped areas. Then why is then strange recommendation?

Kiran Bedi, country's first lady IPS officer had recieved accolades form all over the world including a rare Magsasay Award. But when it came to postings the government decided to go with the majority IAS opinion and shunnted her to useless posts. The IAS still holds the post of Home Secretary and Defence Secretary to buldoze the aspirations of IPS and Army officers.

Full of such offbeat ideas, the 6th Pay Commission has helped none apart from the IAS. The Congress had initially thought that they would be winning the hearts of all the central service officers through this one commission which could have converted into necessary votes in the coming national election. But now the very idea has backfired. Most central government employees, particularly the massive police force and the defense forces are so badly disheartened that apart form Congress every other national and state party is trying to cash in on the faux pas of Congress.

UP Chief Minister Ms Mayamati has already sent her open support to the idea of giving the IPS complete parity with the IAS. Gujarat CM Mr Narendra Modi asked for appointment with PM to stress the need for redressing the grievances of the police services. Non- Congress MPs of Kerala have joined hands to approach the PM to set right the anomalies in the 6th Pay Commission.

Congress better watch its back. Trusting babus may prove more costly than they think.