Jammu and Kashmir: IAS officer from Dalit community complains of harassment by LG and CS, former CMs seek probe

Srinagar: A former chief minister has sought a probe after an IAS officer accused J&K Lt Governor Manoj Sinha and chief secretary Arun Kumar for allegedly harassing him for being Scheduled Caste and highlighting “bunglings” in the implementation of the Jal Jeevan Mission.

An IAS officer of 1992 batch Ashok Kumar Parmar has approached the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) accusing LG Sinha, and Mehta for “harassing, intimidating and threatening” him.

Parmar is currently posted as chairman of the Bureau of Public Enterprises. He said during his tenure as principal secretary Jal Shakti Department in J&K , he intimated the LG, chief secretary and other authorities about the “dismal status of implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission”, which he said was being implemented without doing SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) Analysis.

“I have apprehensions that they might go to any extent to damage my reputation and career by taking any arbitrary actions against me to implicate me in false cases with the help of anonymous / pseudonymous complainants as I had pointed out many financial irregularities in implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission(JJM),” he said in the complaint submitted to the Commission on August 17.

Parmar claims that LG Sinha on June 6, 2022 threw him out of the meeting room in front of all the administrative secretaries of UT of J&K.

He said that Chief secretary Arun Mehta also threw him out of the meeting on July 25, 2023.

Former chief minister and National Conference Vice president Omar Abdullah said the allegations were serious enough to warrant an impartial investigation.

“The allegations are serious enough to warrant an impartial investigation but we know that will never happen. Sadly the news media has completely ignored this story. They are being kept too busy chasing Ms World & other fluff stories. The lure of advertising rupees & the fear of summons to police stations have effectively silenced what was once a vibrant free(ish?) press in J&K,” Omar wrote on X formerly twitter.

PDP president Mehbooba Mufti said the IAS officer allegation confirms the rot in the system at the very top.

“Allegations about corruption at the highest level in J&K have finally found feet to stand upon. When an IAS officer confirms the rot in the system at the very top it indicates the grave risks he’s taken by exposing them. Instead of punishing culprits responsible for bungling of thousands of 3000 crores in the Jal Jeevan scheme, an upright officer is made to suffer,” Mufti said on X.

The IAS office stated in the complaint that after completion of his tenure of central deputation in March 2022, he was posted as the Principal Secretary with the Irrigation and Flood Control Department, J&K.

“Manoj Sinha threw me out of the meeting room on June 6, 2022, to harass and humiliate me without my fault,” he alleged. (UNI)