A former IAS officer reflects on the mess in Bihar

Sudhir Kumar IAS (Bihar 1980), posted as Chairman of the Bihar Staff Selection Commission, Patna, was arrested last week on charges of leakage of BSSC question papers. This is the second arrest of an IAS officer in Bihar within the space of a few months.

It is surprising that there is no discussion on these issues on the Facebook page of the IAS Association. The officer, who has an impeccable record, belongs to the Scheduled Castes. His sister-in-law and his nephew have also been arrested on similar charges. Now police is threatening to also arrest his aged father, who retired several years ago as a Joint Secretary to the Government of Bihar.

There has been a huge Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh, but has a single IAS officer heading any department responsible for those admissions/ recruitments been arrested?

In the case of Sudhir Kumar IAS (Bihar 1987), no departmental enquiry or probe has been conducted into the alleged leak of question papers for recruitment tests to subordinate services to be held by the Bihar State Subordinate Services Board.

A Special Investigation Team of the Bihar Police has been formed under SSP Patna Manu Maharaj and Sudhir Kumar has been cooperating in their investigation. Yet not only has he been arrested, but several members of his family are also being threatened with arrest.

Earlier Parmeshwar Ram of the Bihar Administrative Service, serving as Secretary in the BSSC, was arrested as also a Computer Operator of the Board, who had alleged in course of interrogation that some 18 to 20 bigwigs including legislators and ministers were involved in the alleged scam. None else named by them seems to have been arrested, nor have their names been disclosed in media reports.

IAS officers can be suspended; their actions against rules in course of performance of their duties can be departmentally enquired into and punishments awarded; they can be transferred at the will of the State or Central Government, their deputations can be cut short. Following due process laid down under rules, they can be denied increments, pension, promotion; they can be prematurely retired or dismissed from service, if found guilty of transgressions.

Arrest, however, is a short cut. It requires no involvement on paper of the appointing authority or the controlling authority, of the Chief Minister or the Chief Secretary. If they are later found innocent and let off by the courts, the State Government is none the worse for it. The purpose of intimidation of an entire service, an entire cadre has been achieved.

The real scandal is that since Lalu Prasad Yadav left as Chief Minister, no regular recruitments were made in Bihar. Previous recruitments were probed and turned into scandals. Contract employment became the norm.

Dodging reservation norms, ex-Army and Central Paramilitary men were given contract employment in special police groups. Computer operators were taken in via Beltron. Krishi Sewaks, Shiksha Mitras, Asha workers, Jeevika workers, Contract Teachers/ Lab Assistants/ other teaching and non-teaching staff in engineering colleges, polytechnics, ITIs were all appointed in the name of expediency without paying any heed to reservations.

With regular recruitments, their jobs of 10 to 15 years are under threat. The Minister for Personnel is the CM himself, but both Sudhir and Parameshwar were SCs and may be perceived as closer to Lalu Yadav and Jitan Ram Manjhi. Sudhir was DM, Patna under Lalu and Home Secretary under Manjhi, the seniormost SC officer in the state in line for becoming the Chief Secretary.

It’s the same story with Dr Jitendra Gupta. Officers from the Bania caste have long been patronised by Lalu Yadav. Jitendra, a 2014 batch officer simply implemented the law which says police has no authority to detain people violating transport rules without the MVI or a Transport Magistrate.

Jitendra was SDO Mohania on Bihar-UP border and Mohania Checkpost is one of the most lucrative in Bihar. Jitendra rushed in where angels fear to tread. Other SDOs also stopped police from checking and harassing and creating traffic jams. The dwindling police hafta is supposed to have hit the collections of a senior minister considered close to the CM. Jitendra had to be made an example of. So Vigilance was used—a Bhumihar fort.

The resistance put up by the IAS Association will crumble soon. Already the President and Vice President of the Association are learnt to have refused to sign the memorandum, leaving it to the Secretary and Treasurer Vivek Singh and Deepak Singh to sign and lead the delegation to the Governor.

This is how institutions are undermined in our country. The IAS is dying not with a bang but a whimper. And the irony is that the public whose interests they are supposed to safeguard knows nothing about the truth of the story.

This story will be used by the BJP-RSS against the Bihar Government, by the press for bureaucrat bashing (a favourite pastime of both the zealous and the ignorant), by the underminers of democratic institutions in the interest of unbridled global capitalism, by the upper castes against the Dalits and backward classes, by the anti-reservationists against reservation, by the IPS and other service lobbies against the IAS.

The simple truth will be obfuscated. The innocent will suffer. And public interest will be compromised and seriously damaged in the long run.