IAS brass express fear over 'witch hunt' of PC Parakh

NEW DELHI: India’s senior-most civil servants met on Friday to express their concern at what many IAS officers are describing as an investigative witch hunt – CBI’s charges against former coal secretary, PC Parakh. The cabinet secretary, Ajit Seth, is learnt to have expressed dismay and apprehension over CBI’s actions, a senior bureaucrat told ET, asking not to be named.

The executive council of IAS officers’ association is scheduled to meet today. A strongly-worded resolution against ‘arbitrary investigative action’ has been drafted and will be considered. The meeting, some IAS officers said, will also discuss ways civil servants can be ‘protected for bona fide decisions officers take in their line of duty’.

The CBI on Tuesday had charged Parakh of allegedly abusing his official position while allotting coal blocks in Orissa to Hindalco Industries, which is part of the Aditya Birla Group.

A senior official in the cabinet secretariat said, “the most worrying aspect of the case against Parakh is that past credentials and reputation don’t matter anymore, and the principles of collective responsibility have gone out of the window.” Senior IAS officers attending tomorrow’s meeting said the FIR against Parakh was the ‘tipping point’. The Parakh case comes after earlier CBI actions against former coal secretary HC Gupta, former telecom secretary, Shaymal Ghosh and the UP government’s controversial suspension of IAS officer Durga Shakti Nagpal.

The executive council, one of its members said, will consider ways to shield retired civil servants from being penalized for ‘honest actions’ taken during a bureaucrat’s career. Serving bureaucrats over the rank of joint secretary can be investigated only after the government grants permission to the investigative authority. No such checks apply for retired civil servants, irrespective of their seniority at the time of retirement.