The Wire: New Delhi: Monday, February 12, 2018.
Despite the
BJP having made a big issue of the allegations of corruption which had been
levelled against the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government in Haryana in 2010, the
Narendra Modi government at the Centre has chosen to adopt the same stance
taken by Manmohan Singh’s government in denying a probe by the Central Bureau
of Investigation (CBI) into what had come be known as the Haryana forestry
scam.
In doing so,
the Modi government has stood by an opinion of the Department of Personnel and
Training (DoPT), issued in February 2012, which was in conflict of a
constitutional scheme of protection to All India Services.
A series of
appeals filed under the Right to Information Act (RTI) by whistleblower Indian
Forest Service (IFS) officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi when he was posted in Haryana
had unearthed the scam involving senior Haryana politicians and bureaucrats
have revealed how instead of going after corruption committed under the
Congress rule, the Modi government has decided to stall the investigations and
in doing so has sought to defend the DoPT order which has since been cited by
the Haryana government to repeatedly stall a probe by the Central Bureau of
Investigation into allegations of corruption involving top political leadership
and bureaucracy in Haryana.
DoPT
opinion in conflict with constitutional scheme
The Centre
has so far also not cancelled the opinion of DoPT which was in conflict of
constitutional scheme of protection to All India Services.
Incidentally,
these services draw their origin from the constitution, under Article 312,
which gives complete and absolute powers to the Central government to legislate
and regulate each of their service matters, Moreover, under Rule 16, 24 &
25 of AIS(D&A) Rule 1969, the Central government can at any stage, even on
suo moto basis, quash any order of a state government in disciplinary matters,
relating to grievances, at any stage. Further the very subject of All India
Services lies in Union List (List I) of the constitution making them totally
out of bound for state governments.
The ‘steel
frame’ is being undermined
But while the
Modi government has repeatedly proclaimed Sardar Patel to be its icon and role
model, it has sought to counter his idea behind creating the All India Services
and providing them constitutional safeguards through its approach in this
matter. On Patel’s birth anniversary on October 31, 2017, Vice-President
Venkaiah Naidu had noted how Indian Administrative Service was one of the great
contributions of Patel who in his vision for a “unified India”, saw it as a
“steel frame”.
The Modi
government’s stand in the matter, however, runs contrary to this idea. A writ
petition filed by Chaturvedi in Supreme Court in November 2012 for order of CBI
investigation into all these scams is still pending. Ironically, the DoPT
opinion, which the Modi government so vigorously defended, remains the main
defense of the Haryana government to counter the demands of CBI investigation
into the scams during the Hooda rule.
Preliminary
probe had indicted CM, minister, bureaucrats
The case goes
back to 2010 when on the basis of comprehensive representation of Chaturvedi to
the then Cabinet Secretariat, the Ministry of Environment and Forest had
constituted a two-member enquiry committee to look into corruption related to
illegal mining, illicit filling, fake plantations, etc that had been unearthed
by the officer.
Finding prima
facie substance in the case, the enquiry committee had severely indicted the
office of then Haryana chief minister Hooda, then forest minister Kiran
Chaudhary, then chief parliamentary secretary Prehlad Singh Hilakhera and
senior officers of state government, for their alleged role in these cases of
corruption and recommended a CBI probe. Subsequently, both CBI and Central
Vigilance Commission (CVC) had given their concurrence for the investigation in
November-December 2011 and the issue was under active consideration of MoEF.
DoPT note
was used to stall CBI probe
But then all
of a sudden, the DoPT, headed by minister of state Narayan Swami had sent a
“confidential note” to the PMO in February 2012 declaring the actions of MoEF,
in constituting the enquiry committee, as ‘ultra vires’. But a copy of this
“confidential” opinion was immediately sent to senior IFS officer of Haryana
cadre, M.M. Joshi, who was indicted in the two member committee report for
corruption charges.
The DoPT also
declared that the Central government does not have any power over the service
matters of All India Service officers, working in the state government and
hence, declared the actions of constitution of enquiry committee by MoEF as
untenable.
Despite,
DoPT’s observations, on March 1, 2012, the MoEF accepted the recommendation of
CBI and CVC for a CBI probe and asked the Hooda government to issue a
notification for the same. But the Haryana government rejected the direction of
MoEF citing the DoPT opinion.
Annoyed at
the content and leakage of DoPT opinion, which was used by the Hooda government
to refuse notification for CBI investigation, Chaturvedi sent a number of
representations to the PMO as DoPT also reported to the Prime Minister directly
but as there was no response he filed an RTI application with the PMO in
October 2013 and then took the matter to the Central Information Commission
(CIC) in May 2014.
Under
Manmohan, PMO defended denial of information
The PMO then
stated that it had the right to not reveal internal government documents which
may be used to initiate civil or criminal proceedings in court against the
government or officials for alleged illegal and unconstitutional acts.
The CIC on
May 20, 2014, directed the CPIO in PMO to provide all the information within
one week and more importantly issued a show cause notice for imposition of a
fine of Rs 25,000 not only against CPIO but also against deemed CPIO, who in
this case happened to be a senior officer of PMO.
As the Modi
government was sworn in after this order on May 26, 2014 it was believed that
in order to expose the corruption under the Congress regime in Haryana it would
act in the matter. But it was not to be.
Modi too
did not act against the corrupt
Instead of
complying with the orders of CIC on a matter of such important constitutional
issue related to All India Services, which had been thought of by BJP’s new
icon, Sardar Patel, as a means of improving civil administration by providing
protection for the central officers who are posted in the states, chose to file
a review application against the orders of CIC in July 2014. This happened
despite there being no provision of review under RTI Act 2005 (this has been
spelt out by Delhi High Court in CWP 5086/2010, in order dated 18.11.2011 in
the case titled Suhas Chakma vs Union of India and another).
When the CIC
again directed PMO on July 30, 2014 to submit compliance report of its earlier
order within three weeks, in gross disregard of the statutory provisions and
ruling of Delhi high court the PMO filed a second review on August 25, 2014
which remained pending in the Commission for nearly 18 months as the post of
CIC, who hears matters relating to PMO, remained vacant all this while.
The new CIC,
Vijay Sharma, soon after taking charge had closed the said show cause notice
order passed in November 2015 saying that delay was not ‘intentional’ nor ‘mala
fide’. Thus the delinquent officials of earlier PMO as well as DoPT officials,
who had kept pending the supply of information and were held liable for
penalty, were let off without any punishment.
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