Senior IAS Officer, Ashok Khemka was transferred for blocking the land deal between DLF and Robert Vadra.
“The Haryana government was on the backfoot Tuesday after a senior IAS officer accused the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government of transferring him for probing alleged irregularities in the land deals of Robert Vadra, son-in-law of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
Ashok Khemka, a 1991-batch officer, said he was moved out of his job as Inspector General of Registration and Director General (Consolidation) last week for wanting to examine all land deals of Vadra in Haryana.
The officer, despite being transferred, ordered an inquiry to look into the “alleged undervaluation of some properties registered by Robert Vadra or his companies as vendor or vendee”. Before being relieved, he also ordered the cancellation of the sale of a 3.5 acre plot of land in Manesar-Shikohpur that Vadra had sold to DLF for Rs 58 crore.
The Hooda government denied Khemka’s allegations and sought to justify his transfer. It also ordered an inquiry into the allegations by a panel of three senior officers headed by the additional chief secretary. “The preliminary facts brought to the notice of the government by the district revenue authority at Gurgaon point out that prima-facie the factual position is different from the stand taken by Khemka,” the government said in a statement.
But Khemka accused the government of victimising him. “My fault is that am upright and exposed scams,” he told The Indian Express. “The commissioner or financial commissioner of the revenue department had the right to cancel the mutation in appeal and if the revenue officer has conducted the mutation process wrongly,” Khemka said.”
Note the timing.
It tells you what this is all about.
The habit of victimizing Officers for taking action in questionable deals is not something new.
It began during the reign of Indira Gandhi when an IAS Officer, Ramanathan a CBI officer enquiring into the details of Nagarvala scam where a Bank cashier was accused to have handed over Rs. 68 Lacs in cash to Nagarvala, on the purported telephone call from Indira Gandhi.
An Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer in Tamil Nadu has apparently run afoul of the state’s ruling DMK for implementing the Election Commission’s model code of conduct ahead of the April 13 elections.
Irai Anbu another IAS officer was transferred by both the DMK and the AIADMK on enquiring into their corrupt deals.
The list is endless in Tamil Nadu, so it is in the other States.
The Haryana Government is quoting a High Court Order.
“The state government, however, said that Khemka’s transfer complied with the directions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court passed on October 1. It said Khemka had himself wanted to be relieved of the charge of special collector which is traditionally held by the DG (Consolidation). The High Court ordered the state government to take a decision as early as possible and either give charge to another officer who can competently exercise the powers of a special collector or appoint someone to the post but not in any officiating or temporary capacity.
The government said that Khemka’s order regarding the alleged undervaluation of property was issued on October 12 and cancellation of mutation was ordered on October 15, both after his transfer on October 11. The transfer of Khemka was neither out of any malice nor done abruptly but arose out of the above mentioned administrative exigency, it said.”
Why take 11 days to issue the Order?
Did not a compromise work out?
I am reminded of ‘Don’t Trust him, he protests too much”
Related;
“Official records show that Khemka, a computer engineer who got his first posting as IAS officer in 1993, was transferred 43 times in 19 years with most of his postings lasting merely months.
During this period, he held eight posts in various departments for a month or less. Twelve of his 43 postings, incidentally, were in departments which dealt with ‘land’ in one way or the other – ranging from acquisition, consolidation, records and revenue management to development.
Executive Record Sheet (ERS) of the ministry of personnel shows that Khemka – an IAS officer of the 1991 batch — held only two postings that lasted for over a year. He got the first such tenure (one-and-a-half years) during 2005-06 as chief administrator of the urban development department.”The Times of India)
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