BENGALURU: An IAS officer has gone on leave after he was allegedly humiliated by a few ministers during a
cabinet meeting last Friday for refusing to give a ‘favourable opinion’ on granting a
mining lease.
Sources in the bureaucracy said secretary (mines) Rajender Kumar Kataria chose to go on leave as he was under tremendous pressure to bend the rules and even chided in front of chief minister Siddaramaiah.
Incidentally, Kataria was handpicked by Siddaramaiah himself to cleanse the scam-tainted mining department.
A senior minister, who did not want to be named, told TOI: “During the cabinet meeting, a few ministers were angry with Kataria as he was playing by the rulebook instead of understanding political compulsions.”
The bone of contention was a cabinet file pertaining to re-execution of grey granite quarrying lease on nine acres of land in survey number 12 of Muddakanahalli, Sira taluk, Tumakuru district in favour of M/s Muddakkanahalli Stone Cutters Co-operative Society Ltd, which has members from Bhovi community.
The quarrying lease was granted in 1997 and a request for renewal for another five years had been made in 1999. But on March 18, 2015 the government renewed the lease for 20 years with effect from 2000 and issued a directive stating that the lease should be registered within 90 days.
In his opinion in the cabinet note, Kataria had stated that the renewal had lapsed as the lease deed was not registered on time and re-executing the same now would be in contravention of the Supreme Court guidelines and the Karnataka Minor Mineral Concession (Amendment) Rules-2017, which makes it mandatory for auctioning mining licences.
He rejected the proposal for registration of the non-existent lease as it would lead to legal wrangles. The finance department had endorsed his view and suggested not re-executing the renewal.
But the political bosses weren’t in a mood to listen to Kataria, claiming that nearly 5,000 people are dependent on the quarry, a senior IAS officer said, adding: “Kataria’s is not an isolate case. In fact, discontentment is running high among IAS officers as they feel they are being forced to put out cabinet notes to suit the whims of political masters.”
Another IAS officer said: “More than 300 cabinet decisions have been taken in the last one month. Important issues, which have far-reaching impact, have been approved without any deliberation. There seems to be a major rush to approve files in the run up to the assembly polls and officers are under tremendous pressure.”
Kataria was not available for comment.
