Mr PM, you want whistleblowers protected; here's your chance

Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda is a man who does not forget. His office is allegedly harassing a 2002 batch Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi, a whistleblower who has helped blow the lid off many forest scams in Haryana. After slapping police cases, ordering frequent transfers, imposing illegal suspensions and fabricating a departmental chargesheet against Chaturvedi, the Hooda government has been sitting on the transfer orders of this Central government officer for over a month. He has now written to the prime minister seeking his intervention. Chaturvedi was harassed for protecting a wildlife sanctuary from destruction by powerful contractors, opposing the illegal expenditure of public funds to create private assets on the private lands of a politically influential person in the name of development of a herbal park, and exposing large scale financial irregularities in plantation projects funded by the central government as well as by international donor agencies. _(Read here)_ [caption id=“attachment_349414” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Naresh Sharma/Firstpost”]  [/caption] Faced with repeated harassment, Chaturvedi sought a transfer to the Centre, but this has been held up. The reason: Haryana Forest Minister Ajay Yadav says there are two pending police and departmental enquiries against Chaturvedi. “The file had gone right up to the chief minister’s office, which refused to relieve him for transfer till the enquiries are over,” Yadav told Firstpost. Interestingly, the two departmental/police enquiries are over two years old. A two-member enquiry committee set up by Chaturvedi’s cadre ministry, the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF), had found that he was wronged by the Haryana government and the police cases were filed only with the intention of harassing him. Despite the committee report, the Haryana government has revived the same two cases to stop his transfer now. The desperate whistleblower has now written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In a letter dated 9 June 2012, he has drawn his attention to his own speech on Civil Services Day, in which Singh stressed the need to protect officers from witch-hunts and undue harassment. “This is the worst kind of witch-hunting and if you are true to your words delivered in the above-mentioned speech at Civil Services Day, you are requested to immediately intervene to issue appropriate directions to government of Haryana for my relieving,” Sanjiv Chaturvedi wrote to the PM. Sanjiv Chaturvedi has proceeded on ‘indefinite’ leave from 3 June 2012 in view of his “inability to sustain the torture” unleashed on him. He tells the PM, “My relieving is being deliberately withheld by the state government, with (the) only motive (being) to harass me further and to implicate me in any false police/departmental case, which is evident from the recent reopening of a two-and-a-half year old false police case, without any new evidence. The malice further becomes clear from the fact that, in (the) past five years, the state government relieved all the 11 IFS officers selected for Central deputation, without any hitch.” Firstpost, in an exclusive story dated 13 February 2012, had mentioned that the CBI and the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) had recommended to Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan that Chaturvedi’s complaint is fit for investigation by the CBI and under the law this needed her approval. On 1 March 2012, Natarajan gave permission for a CBI enquiry. The CVC had also recommended Chaturvedi’s protection. After that the Central government itself agreed to Chaturvedi’s proposal for Central deputation. The Central government issued orders for his appointment as Deputy Secretary, AIIMS, on 4 May 2012. MOEF sent a telegram to the Haryana government to relieve Chaturvedi on 7 May 2012. The ministry sent a reminder on 21 May 2012 for his immediate transfer. Even the ministry of health and family welfare sent a letter to the Haryana chief secretary for his immediate transfer. But Hooda’s office shot down the telegram and the government order and sat over his transfer on the grounds that there are pending criminal and departmental enquiries against Chaturvedi. On the apparent victimisation and witch-hunting of Chaturvedi, MOEF’s two-member committee report had concluded that “this is a case which shows the level of degradation that has crept into our administrative system. In the said case, 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 chargesheet, keeping the chargesheet pending for a long period to stall the promotion, registration of false cases, spoiling the ACR (annual confidential report), etc., only for doing his statutory duties.” The committee report had also indicted the office of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. “Right from the suspension (when the CM’s office first ordered to call the explanation of the officer and then suddenly calling back the file midway before the explanation order being issued and then suspending the officer on the basis of concealed reports regarding compliance by the officer), transfer from Kurukshetra (when the orders originated directly from CM office, without any reference from lower office), immediately after sanctuary violation, Jhajjar, once again the orders originated directly from CM office, without any reference from lower office, when investigation of plantation scam was at its peak and the officer had spent just six months) and Hisar (once again the orders originated directly from CM office, without any reference from lower office), when the officer was pressing for action in Jui-Mithathal feeder scam and had just sealed ASM Plywood unit), the role of CM office has been more than evident in removing the officer from the scene, at the detection of any scam/violation.” “Since, it cannot be possible for any state agency to conduct an enquiry into the working of (the) CM office, hence it should be immediately referred to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as prima-facie there are very strong evidences (sic) against CM office,” the committee report stated. After persistent efforts, when Chaturvedi managed to institute a CBI enquiry against the CMO, the state government virtually struck down his transfer orders. “This may be the first instance in the administrative history of the country, when a state government suspended and chargesheeted an IAS officer for the implementation of the orders of the honourable Supreme Court,’’ the committee report observed. In his self-defence, Chaturvedi has proceeded on indefinite leave. The ball is in now the PM’s court.