Mahatma Gandhi once famously remarked that a society made up of average people would be far better than that of geniuses. Perhaps Bapu’s scepticism would give way to cynicism if one looks at the track record of Pradeep Shukla, a top IAS officer of Uttar Pradesh cadre, arrested recently.

Shukla, a 1981 batch topper, figured as prime accused in three cases related to the defalcation of funds for the national rural health mission (NRHM) in UP. By all reckoning, he is considered to be a genius by his peers in bureaucracy. Coming from Allahabad University, then known as the Oxford of the east, Shukla had a brilliant academic record apart from an illustrious family background.

That he still found himself embroiled in a series of corruption cases which ultimately led to the sensational murders of two chief medical officers besides a clutch of suicides, is a veritable enigma wrapped in mystery. As of now, the CBI’s investigation seem to suggest that he is one of the kingpins of the Rs 5,000 crore NRHM scam.

How did Shukla reach such a denouement? How did a UPSC topper end up behind bars? Tough questions to answer but most people who worked with him think that Shukla’s cocksure arrogance of getting away with any and all kinds of indiscretions might be at the root of it all. And that arrogance might have stemmed from the family connections to politics: he is considered a close relative of the Shukla brothers, Vidya Charan and Shyam Charan, of Madhya Pradesh.

That politics and politicians were top on his agenda was clear early in his career when in 1995, as the district magistrate of Lucknow, he was seen touching the feet of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Kanshi Ram. This ensured a certain proximity to Kanshi Ram and later Mayawati which should have been a career buster under other political dispensations but his career never stuttered even during the tenures of Mulayam Singh Yadav, Kalyan Singh and Rajnath Singh. “He is a political natural, he is at ease while dealing with politicians,” said a bureaucrat, his senior, with grudging admiration.

Obviously there is nothing wrong if a bureaucrat is at ease with his political bosses, especially when that is the result of admiration for the bureaucrat’s efficiency, as is the case with Shukla. Delivering a given task in time and in good shape is his biggest asset. “He is a doer who will ensure that things get done,” said another senior IAS official who recalled how chief ministers used to repose confidence in Shukla by giving him verbal instructions. If all this made him the favourite of the political bosses, his cockiness often ruffled feathers of his seniors but that never affected his rise.

He is married to a bureaucrat, Aradhana Shukla, an IAS of 1989 batch, whose close relatives occupy senior positions in the union government. His own family having deep ties with top Congress leaders in UP and Madhya Pradesh gave him enough confidence about his own invulnerability till the CBI closed in on him early in May.

He lobbied with a central minister and senior Congress leaders to escape arrest but his sympathisers in politics and bureaucracy could do little to help because the evidence was overwhelming. His fall from grace could be aptly summed up in the words of George Bernard Shaw, “The most tragic thing in the world is a man of genius who is not a man of honour.”