Government's surgical strike on corruption?
As many as 12 senior officers including Joint Commissioners and Commissioners of Income Tax department have been given compulsory retirement under Rule 56 by Finance Ministry.
As per the sources from Finance Ministry, the names of the officials are Ashok Agarwal Joint Commissioner (Income Tax) on grounds of serious complaints of corruption and major extortion from businessmen, S K Srivastava Commissioner (Appeal) Noida (IRS, 1989), Commissioner (Appeal), Noida, accused of sexual harassment of two women IRS Commissioners.
Homi Rajvansh (IRS, 1985) who had acquired movable and immovable assets worth over Rs 3 crore in the name of self and his family members and BB Rajendra Prasad on allegations of obtaining illegal gratification in lieu of passing a favourable appeal order in a case were the others.
Other officers who were asked to take retirement include Ajoy Kumar Singh, B. Arulappa, Alok Kumar Mitra, Chander Saini Bharti, Andasu Ravindar, Vivek Batra, Swetabh Suman and Ram Kumar Bhargava.
(With ANI inputs)
1. Strong reaction on social media
)
S Gurumurthy, who is an RSS ideologue and RBI board member rued retirement of Sanjay Shrivastava.
Fraudulent people who wanted the Modi government unseated are the only ones who are celebrating this. What a paradox!
— S Gurumurthy (@sgurumurthy) June 10, 2019
If reports I hear are true that Sanjay Shrivastava a totally honest, courageous IT commissioner who exposed the NDTV fraud & fought PC Chidambaram for 15 yrs, bore all persecution, is being compulsory retired, it means Lutyens, PC & NDTV lobbies are still at work in this govt
— S Gurumurthy (@sgurumurthy) June 10, 2019
Here's what Subramanian Swamy said:
I am taking up the case of S K Srivastava I-T Commissioner who was investigating NDTV, since there is no new substantive case against him and Mdm Sitharaman has relied on PC time filed bogus cases, to terminate his services possibly to favour NDTV.First I will write to PM.
— Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) June 11, 2019
2. Unprecedented decision by Modi govt
)
This is the first time so many officers have been relieved from duty at one go. In 2007, two IAS and two IPS officers met with similar fate. But with cracking down on corruption right from word go, Modi 2.0 has given a message that it means business.
Rule 56(J) was used to do this surgical operation.
3. PM Modi's message to bureaucrats
)
Breaking the pattern of hierarchical pecking order, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a free-wheeling interaction with all the secretaries to the Centre on Monday and asked them to make ‘Ease of Living’ of citizens their topmost priority.
“The mandate reflects the will and aspirations of the people to change the status quo, and seek a better life for themselves,” the PM told the top bureaucrats at his official residence in the presence of Union ministers Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nirmala Sitharaman and Dr Jitendra Singh.
The discussion was initiated by Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha who mentioned two important tasks which would be placed before a Sectoral Groups of Secretaries – a five-year plan document for each ministry, with well-defined targets and milestones; and a significant impactful decision in each ministry, for which approvals will be taken within 100 days.
The secretaries too shared their vision and ideas on subjects including administrative decision-making, agriculture, rural development and Panchayati Raj, IT initiatives, education reforms, healthcare, industrial policy, economic growth, and skill development.
Recalling his first such interaction with the secretaries five years ago, PM Modi lauded them for working hard to conceive and deliver schemes that reflected in pro-incumbency results in the recent elections.
