Sushilkumar Shinde, RR Patil pulled strings to give lucrative postings to 'known' officers

It’s not just the police department and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) where politicians pull a few strings to get officers transferred. Information received through an RTI application filed by city-based activist Jeetendra Ghadge has revealed that they poke their nose into such cases in the sales tax (ST) department as well.    

As per the response given to Ghadge, around 15 applications were submitted to the government in 2011 by politicians seeking transfer of officials they had known. The politicians include Shushilkumar Shinde, Dilip Walse-Patil, Vasant Davkhare, Madhukar Pichad, RR Patil and Jaykumar Gore among others. 

Shinde’s application was routed through chief minister Prithviraj Chavan’s office to deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar. Pawar holds the finance portfolio under which ST department comes. Vasant Davkhare, RR Patil, Jay Kumar Gore and the rest had made their recommendations directly to Pawar.

In their letters, most of the politicians had sought transfers stating that these people were either their acquaintance or someone else known to them recommended the transfer. Shinde and RR Patil stated that the persons they sought to be transferred were known to a person (partyman) they knew. Walse-Patil said the officer had approached him for a posting at a particular place.

Davkhare informed that the officer was known to him and wanted a transfer. The officer Pichad was backing wanted a transfer to Mumbai and he had also specified the time when the required post would fall vacant. Gore stated that the officer was his brother and he wanted the transfer as per the circular which allowed an officer to seek a posting where he wanted.

All these letters were forwarded by Pawar to the secretary of the finance department. In some cases, the officers were given the desired posting and in others they were informed that the posts were not vacant.

“Sales Tax department has a very important role in state economy since it collects taxes. We expect the officers to collect maximum tax and send it to the state treasury. However, there are people who are looking for lucrative posts and the intention behind that seems to be nothing but pocketing some money,” alleged Ghadge. 

While Shinde could not be contacted, none of the leaders mentioned above responded to calls or text messages till the time of going to the press.