IAS officer wife 'torture': Congress seeks govt response

Times of India: Bhubaneswar: Friday, 13 March 2015.

The Congress on Thursday demanded the state government to clarify what action it has taken on the purported complaint made by a senior bureaucrat's wife that her husband was having an extra-marital affair with a lady IAS officer and physically and mentally torturing her.

Raising the issue in the assembly, Congress chief whip Tara Prasad Bahinipati said in December the woman lodged a complaint with the State Commission for Women and also submitted a written complaint against her husband in the chief minister's grievance cell.

"The IAS officer's wife wrote that her husband subjected her to physical and mental harassment," he said during zero hour.

"She had told the chief minister that she apprehended threat to her life from the additional chief secretary rank officer, sought security for self and demanded immediate action against her husband," Bahinipati said.

He also alleged that the woman suspects that her husband could be leaking "confidential information" related to the state to his girlfriend.

He later told mediapersons that the woman, who took voluntary retirement from her job as reader in the government college in 2007, had shifted to a separate flat as she was not able to bear the alleged physical and mental torture.

While the Congress leader did not divulge the name of the officer and his wife, speculation is rife in government circles that the IAS officer in question is heading a key government department and is his alleged girlfriend is a Delhi-based bureaucrat.

Earlier this week, the officer's wife sought information, through the RTI Act, from the state government about the action taken on her petition to the chief minister. The woman and her husband has not made any public statement on the matter.

Ruling BJD leaders sought to brush aside the issue as a "personal matter of the officer". "There are several important issues demanding the assembly's attention. Raising such a personal issue in the house is not in good taste," said BJD MLA and party spokesperson Sashi Bhusan Behera. BJP legislature party leader Basanta Panda said, "The allegation that confidential information could have been leaked raises concern."

Leader of opposition Narasingha Mishra described the issue as "important" and said, "The woman had asked for security, but the government has not provided it to her. The CM (also the home minister) should clarify who is the officer, whether the allegations are true and what has the government done on this issue."