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From
Tehelka Magazine, Vol 9, Issue 43, Dated 27 Oct 2012 |
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| CURRENT AFFAIRS |
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COVER STORY |
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ROT IN THE SYSTEM
When David took on Goliath
A top bureaucrat probing Robert Vadra’s land deals is shunted out. Is he paying the price for doing his job? Ashhar Khan reports
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Defiant stand Khemka has been transferred 40 times in his career
Photo: Indian Express Archive |
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ASHOK KHEMKA, the recently transferred Director General, Consolidation of Holdings, Haryana, who took on the Congress party’s first family says, “I feel scared for my life, but I tell myself to gather courage and not feel so.” A 1991 batch IAS officer of the Haryana cadre, Khemka has alleged that he was transferred because he ordered a probe into Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra’s land deals. The allegation has opened yet another can of worms for the ruling UPA.
Khemka was served a transfer order at 10 pm on 11 October — his 40th in a two-decade-long career. On 15 October, his last day in office, he cancelled the mutation of a 3.531-acre plot in Manesar-Shikohpur that Vadra’s company, Sky Light Hospitality, had sold to DLF Universal Ltd on 18 September for Rs 58 crore.
According to him, the Shikohpur land mutation violated the state’s Consolidation Act and was done by an officer not authorised to do so. He also raised questions about the nature of the deal that Vadra entered into with DLF and how its value shot up from Rs 7.5 crore to Rs 58 crore in a span of just 65 days.
It was not just the Vadra-DLF deal. Earlier, Khemka had specifically named six companies owned by Vadra that needed to be probed. Khemka also ordered deputy commissioners-cum-registrars of Palwal, Mewat, Gurgaon and Faridabad to scrutinise all documents registered by Vadra and his companies to assess the real values of the properties mentioned.
Khemka is no stranger to controversy. His penchant for adhering to the book has almost always earned him a transfer. In 2003, when he was posted as Director, Secondary Education, he objected to frequent transfers of primary schoolteachers. Khemka felt the transfers were not being done on merit or for administrative reasons, but to suit the political masters. He says he was “booted out” the very next day by the then CM Om Prakash Chautala.
Later, as the director of Hartron, Haryana government’s electronics corporation, he found that contracts were being awarded without tenders. When he started making enquires, he was stonewalled. His stint there lasted 50 days.
Khemka’s is the typical story of the boy from a humble background who entered the premier civil services of the country. His father was an accountant with a jute factory in Kolkata, where Khemka studied till Class XII before moving to IIT Guwahati. He then did his PhD from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai.
Khemka’s decision to cancel the Vadra-DLF deal has raised a political storm in the country. Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has refuted allegations of a political witch-hunt in Khemka’s transfer. “The chief secretary has been told to probe the allegations. Haryana has not given any undue favours to anybody. We will take action against Khemka if it is found that he has misrepresented facts,” said Hooda while also denying that the transfer was a punishment.
State Chief Secretary PK Chaudhary also dismissed Khemka’s claim. “The transfer order was issued on 11 October while Khemka gave his directions on 15 October,” he said. “So, the question of these being the reasons of his transfer does not arise.” Chaudhary added that the transfer was carried out “in compliance with the directions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court order dated 1 October 2012”.
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Khemka had ordered deputy commissioners-cum-registrars of Palwal, Mewat, Gurgaon and Faridabad to assess all documents registered by Vadra’s companies |
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Khemka was quick to rebut the chief secretary. “The court’s directions were only regarding the post of Special Collector, a relatively junior post, which I held as additional charge,” he retorted.
In fact, the court had only directed that the post of Special Collector should not be clubbed with Director, Consolidation, and that a new officer should be posted without delay. Using this as a pretext, Khemka was given marching orders from all the posts.
SADLY, THIS is not the first time that an upright office has been hounded by the state government. Haryana’s track record in dealing with another whistleblower, Indian Forest Service officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi, has been much chronicled as a matter of national shame. Chaturvedi was transferred 12 times after he exposed several irregularities in the state forest department. The Haryana government had to revoke his suspension after the Centre intervened and had him transferred out of the state. But the State continues to hound Chaturvedi with criminal cases.
The entire Khemka-Vadra-DLF affair has come as a huge embarrassment for the Congress. The allegations of undue favours to Robert Vadra have made the party uncomfortable. For the Opposition, of course, this couldn’t have come at a better time, with two state elections slated in the coming months.
ashhar@tehelka.com
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