Express News Service; February 20, 2011,
The Jammu and Kashmir government has forced a senior IPS officer into retirement for allegedly fudging his date of birth to extend service.
In the first such case in the state, the government has ordered the retirement of IGP, Security, Farooq Ahmed, with effect from February 28, 2009, after a panel probing senior police officers for allegedly fudging their dates of birth, found he had “tampered” with his birth certificate, Principal Secretary (Home) B R Sharma said Sunday, adding that several other officers are under the scanner and will face the same action if found guilty.
Ahmed joined J&K Police as a Kashmir Police Service (KPS) cadre officer in 1977. The documents he submitted at that time mentioned his date of birth as February 5, 1949.
But, in 1981, he made a representation to the government, saying his date of birth as mentioned in the documents submitted by him was wrong. By the time the state government accepted Ahmed’s claim in 1998 and changed his date of birth to November 25, 1951, he had been inducted into IPS. However, the Union Home Ministry, which regulates the IPS, wasn’t informed of the decision.
With the Home Ministry having fixed 1990 as his year of induction into IPS, Ahmed was to retire in February 2009, but thanks to the “corrected” date of birth, continued in service.
Then, in December last year, fellow IPS officer Kamal Saini, currently DIG, Traffic, filed an RTI application, seeking to know why his representation for correcting his date of birth was still pending while Ahmed’s had been taken care of. Saini also wrote to the Union Home Ministry, asking whether it had corrected Ahmed’s date of birth. The ministry replied it hadn’t.
The ministry then directed the state to treat Ahmed’s date of birth as February 5, 1949. The state set up a panel to look into the case, as well as other similar cases. The panel recommended that Ahmed be retired.
But why did J&K not inform the Union Home Ministry for 13 years about the change in Ahmad’s date of birth? Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said the original file was missing. “But as soon as the MHA asked for Ahmad’s records, we sent to them. It’s their decision. They didn’t agree (to the change),” he said.
The ministry justified its decision, saying when the state cahnged Ahmed’s date of birth, he had already been inducted into IPS and so “his service conditions were governed by the All India Service Rules”.
However, Ahmed, in a letter to the Principal Secretary, claimed he had not been confirmed as IPS officer when the order was issued.
He also claimed the Home Ministry had been “incorporating my revised date of birth in the civil list every year”. And even in the order regarding “my empanelment in the rank of DIG, the ministry reflected the corrected version of my date of birth which means the ministry is well informed about my corrected date of birth,” he said.
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