Tainted officials face no worries

Tainted officials seem to have nothing to fear in Uttar Pradesh. Despite facing corruption cases, many such officials have been appointed on plum post.

The new regime instead of acting tough against the corrupt babus chose even not to suspend them though some of them were arrested and were imprisoned for several months.

One of the main accused in the multi-crore National Rural Health Mission scam and senior IAS officer Pradeep Shukla, who spent over three months in jail, was appointed as the member of the Revenue Board immediately after he was out on bail.  However, according to rules, Shukla should have been suspended.

The government had to face embarrassment after the Allahabad HC sought an explanation. The government finally suspended Shukla a couple of days back.
The Samajwadi Party government also shocked many by revoking the suspension of the former State Industrial Development Corporation chief engineer Arun Kumar Mishra, who is accused of indulging in financial irregularities worth several hundred crore.

Court raps govt

The Allahabad high court has directed the government to explain his reinstatement.
Another IAS officer K Dhanlakshmi, who was also an accused in the same case, has been appointed as district magistrate of Sultanpur.

The government again incurred the wrath of the court when it re-appointed tainted officials, who are facing  charges of irregularity in allotment of plots for hotels, on plum posts in the Noida Authority.

The Allahabad high court instituted an inquiry into the loss incurred by the exchequer in the allotment of plots and appointed a court commissioner to conduct the probe.
Noida chairman Rakesh Bahadur and chief executive officer Sanjeev Saran and some other officials had been accused of irregularities in the allotment of the plots for hotels at Noida and causing loss of an estimated Rs 44,000 crore to the public exchequer.

They were removed from their posts after the allegations.
The two officials were appointed to the same posts along with their team though the
departmental probe was still on.

The SP had in its election manifesto said it would set-up a commission to probe the cases of corruption that occurred during Mayawati regime and stern action would be taken against corrupt and tainted babus. It appears that the party has forgotten its promise.