Hooda protects forest mafia?

Hooda protects forest mafia?

Sanjiv Chaturvedi’s story exposes the links that bind politicians & officials to corrupt businessmen

 

by Neeraj Mahajan

 

Sanjiv Chaturvedi, a 2002 batch Indian Forest Service (IFS) Haryana cadre officer, is these days running from pillar to post to get himself posted out of Haryana. But much as the Hooda Government in the State may hate his guts, it is not inclined to let him leave the jaatland at any cost.

 

Being a Central Service officer, Chaturvedi has petitioned the Centre seeking a transfer from Haryana. But whatever be the outcome of his petition, this case will go down in the history of Centre-State relationships, as for the first time in independent India an officer was suspended and chargesheeted for dismissal from service for performing his constitutional duty. It is also the only instance where the Centre intervened after about three-and-a-half years to quash the chargesheet buried in State Government files on direct orders on behalf of the President.

 

Chaturvedi’s crime: he was diligently doing his duty. In the process, however, he upset the coterie of power brokers -- politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen and contractors – whom he exposed as being involved in conspiring, promoting or shielding those responsible for felling trees, poaching wildlife, making bogus payments for plantations that did not exist, encroaching forest land and destroying forests in the name of development. His is a story that brings into focus the problems and travails of all Central Service officers. This is also a story which reinforces a confirmed belief about the bureaucracy where the good boys get punished while the bad ones end up having all the fun.....READMORE