The Hans India: Hyderabad: Tuesday,
May 17, 2016.
An officer
came before the CIC, seeking a copy of an IB report in his case. He got second
rank in IFS, received two special medals from President. As Divisional Forest
Officer, Kurukshetra, Chaturvedi stopped large-scale habitat destruction
including felling of trees and poaching of wildlife in the Saraswati Wildlife
Sanctuary by the contractors of irrigation department.
In retaliation,
he was moved to remote Fatehabad in 2007, where he stopped misuse of public
funds to create private assets in the name of creation of a herbal park in the
private land of politician. He was suspended. First false case was filed
against him on the charge of a theft of a tree and criminal intimidation.
The President
of India revoked his suspension in 2008. He was not posted anywhere till 2008
and then posted as DFO, Mewat, a non-cadre post, which was stayed by the CAT
(Chandigarh). He was given cadre posting in Jan 2009 as DFO, Jhajjar.
RTI
protects honest officer
A
departmental enquiry on false charge was ordered to deprive him of promotion.
He sought information under RTI, which was denied by the State. Haryana State
Information Commission awarded Rs 10,000 compensation to be paid by the
department for harassment and detriment caused.
At Jhajjar,
he exposed multi-crore plantation scam where crores of public funds were
siphoned off in the guise of fake plantation, which led to suspension and charge-sheeting
of 40 field staff. Second false case was filed against appellant, alleging he
abetted suicide by a suspended employee of a plantation, though father of the
deceased employee complained that one lady was suspected for murder. His name
was inserted in FIR.
Though the
investigating officer concluded it as suicide under influence of alcohol, the
State government prevailed upon father to implicate him. Forensic reports
proved these claims wrong. File notings proved the CM was behind this transfer.
At Hisar, he
unearthed another plantation scam wherein funds of the central government
sponsored schemes were embezzled and this scam involved senior officers who
were very close to the Chief Minister. He also caused closure of a large
plywood unit for depositing Rs 26,000 as license fee against requirement of Rs
22 lakh, and faced third transfer.
On his
request, the Cabinet Secretary constituted a 2-member Inquiry Committee in
2010, which confirmed that he was harassed by the CM. About the role of the
then Forest Minister, the Committee observed; “In this whole episode, the role
of the then Forest Minister is very evident.
The evidences
are her “annoyance on the stoppage of the work of the Herbal Park.” About the
victimisation of the petitioner, the Committee observed, “this is a case which
shows the level of degradation that has crept into our administrative system,
….a junior officer of an All India Service was harassed through all the means
available with the concerned authorities of the State Government, which include
frequent transfers, long spells without posting, arbitrary suspension, issuing
a fabricated charge-sheet, keeping the charge-sheet pending for long period to
stall the promotion, registration of false cases, spoiling the ACR, etc., only
for doing his statutory duties. On the basis of the available documents, it is
proved beyond doubt that the only cause for the harassment of the officer was
his stand in protecting a Wild Life Sanctuary against destruction from powerful
contractors, opposing the illegal expenditure of public funds to create private
assets on the private land of politically influential person in the name of
development of the Herbal Park and exposing large-scale financial
irregularities in plantation projects, funded by the Central Government, as
well as International Donor Agencies. Certain features of this case are very
shocking – that the officer was first transferred, then issued warning by the
State Govt., then suspended and finally issued a charge-sheet under major penalty
(which has been deliberately kept pending for more than three years) for the
same act of preventing the destruction of a Wildlife Sanctuary, in implementing
the orders of Hon’ble Supreme Court (according to which the prior permission of
Supreme Court has to be taken before undertaking construction activities in the
protected areas)/provision of Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 and Forest
(Conservation Act), 1980 (both are Central Acts) – this may be the first
instance in the administrative history of the country, when a State
Govt. suspended and charge-sheeted an AIS officer for the implementation of the
orders of the Hon’ble Supreme Court; even when the officer represented against
the illegal warning in this case, his submitting the representation was itself
considered as a misconduct by the State Govt. and was inserted as a charge in
the charge-sheet; the open use of public funds to create private assets on the
private land of politically influential persons; preparing a highly
fabricated/illegal charge-sheet by a state government against its own official,
in which, even the compliance report of the officer was concealed to create the
charge of insubordination; during his five year tenure in the state, the
officer was kept without any cadre posting for 2 ½ years and served 11 posting
orders, routinely after exposing scams, while no action seems to have ever been
taken against the officers involved in the various scams which include the case
of Jhajjar Forest Division, where out of 37 beats of the whole division, fake
payments were detected in 26 beats, but even then no action was taken by the
State Government against the concerned DFO responsible for these
irregularities; the mere allegations of a forest encroacher were thought to be
enough by the State Government to charge-sheet the officer under major penalty,
and the charge still not being removed despite exoneration by State Vigilance
Bureau and departmental inquiry, more than two years back; even the personal
life of the officer was dragged, into the said charge-sheet despite the charges
being quashed by High Court; a trivial incident of the probation period was
inserted into the charge-sheet; going beyond the jurisdiction and despite the
fact that the competent authority in the matter i.e.
Director,
IGNFA, had already made it clear that it was a routine matter, which was closed
and no further action was needed; repeated violations of cadre rules by State
Government in which cadre officers were kept without posting and non-cadre
officers were given cadre postings despite statutory rulers and strong
directives of the Central Government; defense of the violators at the cost of
public exchequer by the State Government, while
penalising the officer for implementing the statutory provisions; even after
the charges of the charge-sheet, being adjudicated by Hon’ble Supreme Court
appointed CEC (which found the charges of violation true and State Govt. had to
deposit Rs. 1.00 Crores)/ Allahabad High Court/State Information Commission
(where the state govt. had to accept in written that the said charge-sheet was
framed wrongly and had to pay a compensation of Rs. 10000/- to the
officer)/Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) in the officer’s favour, etc.
and in fact, the officer getting awards for his role, including the one given
by National Advisory Council member, Ms. Aruna Roy, the State Govt. seems to be
hell bent on somehow keeping that fabricated charge-sheet pending to keep the
officer continuously on tenterhooks.”
The State
Government did not act to fix responsibility and to take action against the
officials for corruption proved by appellant. Centre referred the entire case
to Central Vigilance Commission in 2011, since state refused to take action on
inquiry committee report.
The CVC
referred the matter to CBI, who concluded that: The issues raised by Chaturvedi
were analyzed in CBI and were found to be worthy of an independent probe. … CBI
is willing to taker over investigation of this matter, provided an FIR
pertaining to the offences is first registered with Haryana Police and the
State Government issues a notification u/s 6 of DSPE act, 1946, for
transferring the said case to CBI.
This would be
required to be followed by issuance of a notification by the Central Government
u/s 5 of DSPE Act, 1946. This issues with the approval of Director, CBI.”
As Chief
Vigilance Officer (CVO) at AIIMS, he exposed unauthorised foreign trips, got
seized banned drugs worth Rs 6 crore from a vehicle supplying drugs to an
on-campus pharmacy owned by an MLA. The then Health Minister signed two
internal reports which rated his work as a CVO as "outstanding."
He also
initiated actions in around 200 corruption cases during his working as CVO;
punishment was imposed in 78 cases, chargesheet was issued in 87 cases and more
than 20 cases were referred to CBI for criminal investigation. In 2014, he was
relieved from the additional charge of CVO. He continued as the Deputy Director
at AIIMS.
He applied
for change of cadre from Haryana to Uttarakhand in 2012 on grounds of extreme
hardships including frequent transfers, suspension and false
police/departmental cases. The Central Information Commission approved that the
copy of the IB report is the information pertaining to allegations of
corruption and human rights violations and thus shall be given to him as per
proviso in Section 24 of RTI Act.
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