Ashok Khemka, IAS, protests, "I am being publicly humiliated for doing my job"

By Dilip -
Chandigarh: Senior bureaucrat Ashok Khemka has written to the Haryana government alleging that he is being hounded for challenging a land deal struck in the state by Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of Sonia Gandhi, the country's most powerful politician. In a letter to  PK Chaudhery, the chief secretary of the government, Mr Khemka writes, "I am being publicly humiliated for doing my job" and says he is being punished for his decision to cancel the sale of land by Mr Vadra to real estate major DLF in 2008 for 57 crores. He writes, "My biggest 'crime' of course was my cancellation of the mutation by Shri Robert Vadra's Sky Light Hospitality to DLF Universal on October, 2012. It is not difficult to see that that is the real crime or misdemeanor for which I am being punished."

Within days of nullifying that deal, he was transferred from his position as the man heading the department that handled all land registration. The Haryana government then over-ruled his decision and has prepared two chargesheets against him. One accuses him of exercising powers he did not have in voiding the Vadra-DLF transaction. The second charges him with failing his duties as the man running the Haryana Seeds Development Corporation, a post he held for a few months.  Mr Khemka has accused that state-run company of being riddled with corruption, a charge now being investigated by the CBI. His supporters say that he is being punished for reporting the alleged scam to the CBI without clearance from the state government.

Mr Khemka alleges that the chargesheet against him in the Vadra case was cleared by SS Dhillon, a bureaucrat who used his earlier position as Director of Town and Country Planning to wrongly grant a commercial license to the land that Mr Vadra went on to sell to DLF. That license allowed the value of the land to shoot up considerably. "SS Dhillon cannot be expected to be objective and fair in dealing with my case file," Mr Khemka writes. He adds, "My position is like the batsman in a cricket match who is asked to bat in a match where the umpire is totally biased."
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/am-being-punished-for-taking-on-robert-vadra-writes-ias-officer-ashok-khemka-435531?pfrom=home-lateststories

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