Hooda assures of action if IAS officer's charges found true

Refuting IAS officer Ashok Khemka's charges that his transfer was done with malafide intention, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda today said action will be taken against anyone found guilty if the bureaucrat's assertions on land deals are found true.

"I have asked the Chief Secretary to examine the whole matter," Hooda said.
He said that action will be taken if the points raised by Khemka are found to be true and vice versa.

"The state government acts in a neutral manner and does not favour anyone or punish anyone without fault," he said.

Hooda rejected the charge that Khemka's transfer was some kind of punishment awarded to him, saying "there is no truth in this".

"It (transfer) is prerogative of the state government," Hooda told reporters in Panchkula, where he had gone to pay obeisance at the Mata Mansa Devi shrine on the first day of the auspicious Navratras.

He also interacted with reporters outside a Gurudwara in Panchkula later.
Meanwhile, reacting to the Khemka's assertions, former chief minister and INLD president, Om Prakash Chautala said he was an upright and honest IAS officer and there should be a thorough probe into the charges he has levelled.

"We have been saying over the years that the Hooda government is a government of realtors and property dealers. What Khemka is now saying, we have been saying this for a long time. Chief Minister Hooda finds himself neck-deep in scams and everyone knows that he is there as long as Congress President wants him to be. So how could the chief minister have displeased Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law (Vadra)," Chautala told reporters.

Chautala demanded that the chief minister should immediately step down on moral grounds.

State BJP leader Anil Vij also called for a high level independent probe into Khemka's assertions.

He also sat on a dharna here to press for his demand.
Last week, the Haryana government had rejected activist Arvind Kejriwal's charge about a nexus between state officials and DLF.

The 45-year-old IAS officer Khemka is at the centre of a raging controversy after he was transferred in the wake of his decision to probe alleged undervaluation of properties dealt with by Robert Vadra, son-in-law of Congress President Sonia Gandhi.

The state government also rejected Kejriwal's allegation that 350 acres of government land was given to DLF by rejecting the bids of two construction majors even without opening their technical bids, saying this was "baseless".

Director General of Haryana Town and Country Planning and Urban Estates Department T C Gupta and Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructural Development Corporation's (HSIIDC) Managing Director Rajeev Arora had denied any nexus between the state officials and DLF.