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Hyderabad, Feb 4: With the onslaught of the CBI on senior IAS officers, the powerful lobby of top bureaucrats might now go strictly as per rules and this would surely result in serious bottlenecks for achieving rapid development.
In an unprecedented manner over 70 IAS officers led by the leaders of their association, Prasanta Mahapatra and J Raymond Peters met the Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy on Friday evening and complained to him on the way CBI has been victimizing the bureaucrats for decisions taken either by politicians or taken jointly. Their complaint is also that CBI officials had no knowledge of the working of the government administration and they should also include some officers who know these procedures in their team. Their other demand is that senior IAS officers should be questioned when necessary in their chambers and not called to the CBI office or guest house. They have also demanded legal aid to the arrested officers.
By and large it is a warning to the government that the IAS officers would not take the onslaught lying down. Any one is innocent until proved otherwise. Even the arrested IAS officers Sri Lakshmi and B P Acharya are not criminals until the courts say so. So, there is no need to treat them as criminals until their crimes are proved in courts. The way CBI has been handling the IAS officers is rather insulting, the top bureaucrats feel. Even before some IAS officers arrived at the Dil Kusha guest house for questioning, TV channels give a scrolling that so and so would be arriving for getting grilled. How are the TV channels knowing all these events in advance? CBI Joint Director Lakshmi Narayana maintains that there were absolutely no leaks from the agency and news reports carried are all speculations.Still many such speculations proved to be correct in the recent days.
Reports said that IAS officers Suthirtha Bhattacharya, Principal Secretary, Infrastructure and Brahmananda Reddy, former special secretary of that department were summoned for questioning in Y S Jaganmohan Reddy’s illegal assets case. How did the media know about the summons, if there was no leak from the agency? Retired Chief Secretary Ramakant Reddy is a very senior officer who retired in the top most position. No officer can reach that position if his career has been blemished. Such an officer was called to the Dil Kusha guest house and grilled for 6 hours on the first day and 4 hours on the second day. He is no criminal. The CBI sleuths could have gone to his house and questioned him, without publicity. The purpose of the questioning would have been achieved that way also. Petty police men call any one on mere suspicion to the police station where as we all know, the very atmosphere is intimidating. An elite agency like the CBI following this cheap police trick is appalling.
It is high time that CBI followed some procedure and also made politicians responsible for controversial decisions taken by the IAS officers. If the bureaucrats alone were taken to task, then there would be serious problems as no development or welfare work would be possible without their nod. In this scary atmosphere that is being created by CBI, no officer would risk his neck even for a welfare or development programme. If rules are strictly followed, it would be mere impossibility to run the administration.
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