IAS Officers’ Association’s stand on jailed SDO not acceptable to many

IAS Officers’ Association’s stand on jailed SDO not acceptable to many
retired, serving bureaucrats

Patna,(BiharTimes): The stand taken by IAS Officers’ Association indefence of arrested Mohania SDO Dr Jitendra Gupta has surprised several serving and retired IAS and IPS officers in the state.

The former chief secretary of Bihar and Jharkhand, V S Dubey, while talking to a newspaper, was quite categorical in his stand. Not only that, a retired DGP-rank officer, who wished not to be quoted, told BiharTimes that there appears to be substantial evidence against Dr Gupta, and thus there is no need to defend him so stoutly.

Like the above two, there are several serving officers too who do not accept the theory that there was a design or conspiracy against Dr Gupta.

Vigilance officials had already claimed that they had done their homework well before arresting Dr Gupta and that they have not acted
in haste.

Political observers are of the view that even for argument sake it is accepted that Vigilance acted ‘improperly’, the court would decide thecase. Even if Rs 80,000 was recovered from the driver and homeguard of Dr Gupta, and not from him, one fails to understand as to why the truck-driver, on behalf of the owner, gave such a huge amount to the dirver of the SDO working on contract and homeguard.

“The truck driver or owner can not be such a big fool. Besides, SDO’s driver and homeguard can never demand such a huge amount from anyone,” goes the argument. Still the IAS Officers’ Association insists that Dr Gupta was not caught red-handed as is being falsely propagated.

However, several analysts are surprised over the double standards adopted by the IAS officers.“If Manorama Devi and Bindi Yadav can be arrested after the road rage incident involving their son, Rocky, why is the IAS Officers’ Association so much worried about Dr Gupta. Both the parents are leaders of the ruling parties yet they had to seek bail. If Dr Gupta is really clean he would not only get bail, but would be acquitted by the court,” a Bihar-watcher told BiharTimes.

Similarly, Mr Dubey is among the senior most and respected retired IAS officers around. He had the rare distinction of serving two states as the chief secretary. There are several others who refuse to accept that the arrest of DrGupta would send wrong signal to the bureaucracy. They do not think that there is any scope for IAS versus IPS tussle in it. After all Dr Gupta is too small a try––just a probationer––to be targeted by any
vested interest, they said.