Why a hero gets a zero -Governance Now

Why a hero gets a zero

Dismal appraisal of Magsaysay winner raises questions

Pankaj Kumar | April 17, 2017 | New Delhi

#AIIMS #Ashok Khemka #JP Nadda #whistle blower #Sanjiv Chaturvedi #corruption #Ramon Magsaysay award winners #Durga Shakti Nagpal

Remember Sanjiv Chaturvedi? The one who won the 2015 Ramon Magsaysay for his crusade against corruption. The whistle-blower officer has been facing difficulties from various regimes, and the latest is the BJP.

The 2002-batch IFS officer received his appraisal for 2015-16 in January. And the health ministry gave him a zero grading.

Ironically, as per an affidavit filed before the Delhi high court on March 6, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) in its confidential report for annual evaluation had found him to be a “diligent officer”.

Justifying his dismal evaluation, the union health minister JP Nadda added insult to injury with these words: “I have gone through the reports of the reporting and reviewing authorities. However, since I have never directly monitored the performance of the officer reported upon and am not in position to form an independent opinion on it, as such, I cannot but agree with the assessment of his immediate superiors.”

Moreover, he was given zero in his performance report for the same year in which he was conferred with the Magsaysay award.

At present, Chaturvedi is posted as conservator of forest (research) at Haldwani in Uttarakhand.

What happened at AIIMS

Chaturvedi made a name when he unearthed a series of scams in Haryana and earned the wrath of the Congress government of Bhupinder Singh Hooda. He shifted to the centre, and was appointed as deputy director of AIIMS, New Delhi, in 2012, and was given an additional charge of chief vigilance officer (CVO) at the institute, but he has no relief from the new regime either. As the CVO, he initiated action in over 200 corruption cases between 2012 and 2014, leading to his removal from the post of CVO (though he retained the post of deputy director).

Dr MC Mishra, the AIIMS director who had consistently awarded him a grade of 9.5 (out of 10) in 2013-14 and 2014-15, gave him only 1 in 2015-16.

As per the instructions issued by the department of personnel and training, any grade between 0-4 is considered ‘zero’ for the purpose of promotion and other service matters.

And in Haryana

Low rating are not new for Chaturvedi. During his stint as a forest officer in Haryana from 2005 to 2012, he exposed many corruption cases for which he was always at confrontation with the Hooda government. He was graded 3.5 out of 10 for two consecutive years (2010-11 and 2011-12). But these gradings were restored as outstanding through a presidential order in January 2014.

He was allegedly harassed by the Hooda government throughout his stint in the state. The state government refused to relieve him for central deputation; constituted an inquiry committee against him, accusing him of inefficiency; and tried to downgrade his appraisal. Between 2008 and 2014, the president passed four orders in his support, quashing Hooda’s orders.

Chaturvedi is not the only one

Ashok Khemka, an IAS officer, has been transferred over 40 times in 23 years of his service after he exposed corruption in departments in which he was posted. He shot to fame in 2012 when he cancelled Congress chief Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra’s illegal land deal in Gurgaon.

Durga Shakti Nagpal, another IAS officer, launched a large-scale operation to stop illegal sand mining in Gautambudh Nagar in 2013. The illegal sand mining was flourishing due to an alleged nexus between politicians and miners. She was suspended for allegedly demolishing an illegal mosque wall in a village in Greater Noida.

Targeting officials like Chaturvedi, Khemka and Nagpal is a major reason why the bureaucracy, supposedly comprising of the most learned officials who run the day-to-day administration of the country, suffers from major corruption and incompetency.

pankaj@governancenow.com

(The article appears in the April 16-30, 2017 issue of Governance Now)

Comments

Other News

GST revenue in May clocks 12% y-o-y growth

The gross Good & Services Tax (GST) revenue collected in the month of May, 2023 is ₹1,57,090 crore of which CGST is ₹28,411 crore, SGST is ₹35,828 crore, IGST is ₹81,363 crore (including ₹41,772 crore collected on import of goods) and cess is ₹11,489 crore (including ₹1,057 crore collecte

Need local solutions to climate change: P Velrasu of BMC

Climate change rising temperature and sea levels are posing new risks for coastal cities. With population growth rate of 1%- 2% in India every year, Mumbai too is growing and is population will double from 20 million to 40 million in the coming years. The city is also at the risk of rising sea level. It ne

Civil Services 2022 Top 20 felicitated

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology, MoS PMO, Department of Atomic Energy and Department of Space and MoS Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Dr Jitendra Singh on Tuesday interacted with and felicitated the first 20 All India Toppers of IAS/ Civil Services Exam 20

Boost to offshore wind energy projects

In a major decision, the Government has decided to grant waiver of ISTS charges to Off-Shore Wind Projects and extend the waiver to Green Hydrogen/Green Ammonia. This decision has been taken to facilitate wider execution of offshore wind energy initiatives, to promote the expansion of Green Hydrogen / Gree

Duty of stakeholders to provide cost effective, alternate energy fuels: Gadkari

Urging use of alternative and cost effective fuels to reduce pollution caused by vehicles, union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday said finding cost-effective fuels is the need of the hour and underlined that use of fuels like bio-CNG and green hydrogen help in protecting the e

Record production of rice, wheat, and sugarcane estimated

The foodgrain production of 3305.34 lakh tonnes is estimated in the current agricultural year 2022-23 – higher by 149.18 LMT as compared to the previous year, according to the Third Advance Estimates of production of major crops released by the ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare.