8 Delhi Lieutenant Governor’s Staff Allege Harassment by AAP Govt

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Officials from the lieutenant governor’s office said eight officers alleged they were harassed by the AAP government.

New Delhi:

As many as eight serving officers in the Delhi government and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) have alleged “blatant harassment” by Arvind Kejriwal’s government, LG office officials said on Saturday.

No immediate reaction was available from the Delhi government or the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the nation’s capital over the alleged harassment of the officers.

Officials from the Lieutenant Governor’s (LG) office said two complaints were received earlier this year, while six were received after May 11, the day the Supreme Court granted review of service matters, to except for the police, land and public order, to elected officials. government in Delhi.

A Delhi government official said any reaction to the allegations could only be provided after reviewing the complaints, if any.

There was also no immediate reaction from officers who alleged they were harassed.

Five IAS officers are among those who filed complaints against the AAP government. They are Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar, former Service Secretary Ashish More, Special Secretaries Kinny Singh and YVVJ Rajasekhar and Power Secretary Shurbir Singh.

Madhur Verma, IPS Officer and Head of Anti-Corruption Branch, Kunal Kashyap, IRS Officer, Chief Assessor and Collector in the MCD House Tax Department, and Amitabh Joshi, DANICS Officer ad hoc and assistant secretary in the services department, are also among the plaintiffs, officials said.

Madhur Verma and Shurbir Singh, from Punjab, alleged in their complaint that their families were being targeted in their home state. Shurbir Singh has informed LG’s office that he has approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court against the harassment of his family, the officials said.

The AAP is in power in Punjab and there has been no reaction from it on the complaints of the officers who come from the state.

There has been growing discord between bureaucrats and the AAP waiver in Delhi since the Supreme Court granted the city government executive power over services, including the transfer and posting of officers.

Hours after the supreme court order placed the bureaucrats working with the Delhi government in check, More was removed from his post as service secretary.

Delhi’s Services Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj also alleged on Friday that Chief Secretary (CS) Kumar issued a death threat to him on May 16.

Mr Kumar, however, claimed in a letter to the LG that the allegations were an afterthought by Bharadwaj to save himself from his alleged misconduct with service department officers.

Sharing the details, an LG office official said on May 16 that the chief secretary was called by Bharadwaj to his room at the Delhi secretariat after office hours to schedule a meeting of the Civil Service Board (CSB) in the city. night.

“Due to repeated calls from the Minister, the Chief Secretary again reached the Secretariat and met with him. The CS informed the Minister that the CSB met on the morning of May 16 regarding the Minister’s instructions for the change in procedure to be followed by the CSB and that the recommendations of the CSB were pending with the minister,” the official said.

“This file was deleted by Bharadwaj and notes were sent via WhatsApp at 9:55 p.m. on May 16 and the physical file was sent at around 10:23 p.m. on May 16 to the official residence of CS. On May 19, Bharadwaj made false allegations that CS threatened to kill him,” the official said.

It was done to file an “afterthought counter-complaint to salvage misconduct he engaged in with service department officers on May 16, once he learned of the same thing,” he said. the official by referring to Minister of Services Bharadwaj.

In a complaint to LG, former services secretary More on May 16 complained that Bharadwaj intimidated and detained him along with another official – 2014 IAS officer Kinny Singh, who is special secretary in the services department – ​​in his office for certain files. .

More alleged that the minister forced him to sign a paper and when he failed to do so, Bharadwaj threatened him with dire consequences, saying his career would be completely ruined.

In his complaint, More also claimed that another service department official, Joshi, had misbehaved and that Bharadwaj also forced him to sign a paper.

More had lodged a complaint against the Minister with the CS and the Union Home Ministry through the LG. Special Secretary Vigilance Rajasekhar, who was investigating the Delhi excise scam case, the expenses incurred for the renovation of the chief minister’s official residence and other alleged irregularities, was removed from office by an order issued by Bharadwaj. LG office officials said there was an attempt to intimidate Delhi’s ruling secretary, Shurbir Singh, by using Punjab police to pursue his family in the state.

He has since moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court against the harassment, the officials said.

LG Office officials also claimed that anti-corruption wing chief Verma, who is also from Punjab, was also “hounded” by Punjab police.

“The AAP government of Punjab was after his family – his brother and his wife – in Ludhiana. He repeatedly reported this undue harassment to LG over the months,” the official said. Verma alleged he had been harassed since taking action against Delhi Waqf board chairman and Okhla MP Amanatullah Khan in an alleged corruption case.

The LG office official further said that the MCD mayor sent a memo to the MCD commissioner against Kashyap alleging that the officer was curbing real estate tax evasion through the ownership of a news agency in RK Puram. The officer took bribes from the company, the mayor (Shelly Oberoi) alleged, according to the official.

The mayor, a member of the AAP, asked the commissioner to remove all work from the officer.

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