"Humiliated" Magsaysay award winner Sanjiv Chaturvedi has written to prime minister Narendra Modi, urging him to bring to an end "culture of intolerance and untouchability being practiced against honest civil servants" and has now decided to donate the award money (Rs 19.8 lakh) to the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund.

The Indian Forest Service officer, who was removed from the post of chief vigilance officer at AIIMS,  who got the Magsaysay award this year for "painstakingly investigating corruption in public office", had donated the award money to AIIMS on September 21 to spend on poor patients. The donation has not been accepted until Monday. AIIMS, Chaturvedi alleged, has deliberately referred the matter to the union health ministry and has kept it "perpetually pending on flimsy grounds".

That the current debate on "religious intolerance" is a non-issue, he wrote, the "real problem is that of establishment towards honesty and honest civil servants across the country, wherein they have been harassed, humiliated, through abuse of power, and in extreme cases physically attacked and eliminated". Hitting out at health minister JP Nadda, Chaturvedi wrote: "All the humiliation inflicted upon me and discriminatory treatment meted out, by way of delay/denial to deposit the award money into institute account, is a direct result of personal annoyance of Mr JP Nadda."
 
Chaturvedi accused Nadda of launching a campaign against him in May 2013, even before he became a minister, when "I had initiated (an) inquiry into (the) corruption cases of one of his protege officers".

While hoping that his donation to the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund would be accepted, Chaturvedi sought an appointment with Modi so that he could convey his "Mann ki baat" on the "plight of honest civil servants".

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