The home ministry is struck with yet another mole sitting in a high-profile post of a joint secretary and allegedly involved in taking kickbacks in construction of border roads.

Home minister P Chidambaram, however, acted fast in shunting back Sada Kant, a 1983 batch IAS officer, to his parent Uttar Pradesh cadre last week just as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was to arrest him for alleged corruption.

Already two IAS officers of the ministry, a joint secretary and a director, have been in custody since last year and Chidambaram did not want his ministry to get bad name with arrest of its one more officer.

The home minister had himself forwarded to the CBI a complaint received against Sada Kant for probe and the agency has already seized incriminating documents from his Chanakyapuri residence. It wanted Chidambaram's permission to arrest him.

Sada Kant was summarily relieved last Thursday and shunted back to his parent cadre while the CBI was told to proceed with action against him after he lands in Lucknow.

Another joint secretary, O Ravi, a batchmate of Kant and the Gujarat cadre IAS officer, was arrested in April last year on the charge of allegedly taking a bribe of Rs 25 lakh from six distillers of Daman to write off their Rs 340 crore central excise dues.

The third officer of the ministry under suspension and cooking heels in Tihar Jails here is Dr Ravi Inder Singh, who was arrested in November for passing on sensitive documents concerning the government moves against a foreign mobile phone firm. An MBBS and 1994 IAS of the West Bengal cadre, Singh and his alleged Kolkata link was followed by the CBI for months before arresting them.