Mantralaya mandarins put up united front to protect corrupt juniors

No government employee will face immediate suspension in a corruption case, if senior bureaucrats have their way.

A recent meeting chaired by the state chief secretary has brought to the fore a kind of "unity" among secretaries from various departments, except for the general administration department (GAD) and the home department.

An official privy to the outcome of the meeting said most of the secretaries argued that there were examples of government employees who were found innocent even after being trapped in ACB raids as the said "bribe" money was kept in their drawers when they had just stepped out. The secretaries insisted that after the ACB action, the decision of suspension should be vested with the appointing officer or concerned head of department, who would examine the facts of the case and decide on suspension.

Home department and GAD officials were of the view that even though an employee caught in an anti-corruption raid was acquitted after inquiry and other procedures, present government resolution makes it mandatory to suspend him/her immediately after the trap. They said immediate suspension should be practised since the image of the government and the department was involved in it.

The chief secretary, however, will forward the majority view taken in the meeting to chief minister Devendra Fadnavis for a final decision.

Interestingly, only 33 of the 145 government employees, who were caught in corruption cases, were suspended in the past. Forty-five such employees were not even dismissed from their services after the lower court convicted them in corruption cases. Reason: they obtained stay from the high court.

Interestingly, if the stay is not for conviction but for the quantum of punishment, the person has to be dismissed. But in most of the cases where the stay was not on conviction but on the quantum of punishment, the tainted employees continued with their jobs because of wrong interpretation of stay orders. There were 45 government employees who continued to work after obtaining such stay orders in January 2015.

However, additional chief secretary (home) KP Bakshi told dna that most of them had been dismissed and that only eight were yet to meet the same fate.