CHANDIGARH: The
Haryana government has charge sheeted Rajinder Singh Chillar, a superintendent in the animal husbandry department, for giving a police complaint about an important file missing from chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s office.
The file had details about a legal dispute over scams exposed by the Magsaysay award winning IFS officer
Sanjiv Chaturvedi. The superintendent has been charged with filing a police complaint, which the Haryana government contends is false and frivolous, in a clandestine manner.
The government has wondered why Chillar mentioned in the police complaint that the file was submitted to the chief minister’s office to decide on withdrawing the case when the noting of the file was already missing.
Chillar, who has also served as superintendent (forest), had written to the Chandigarh police on May 21 about the missing file.
Officer ignored instructions: Chargesheet
The chargesheet has been issued by additional chief secretary (revenue and disaster management), Keshni Anand Arora. Sources confirmed that Chillar had filed the police complaint after senior officials instructed him to do so. The instructions, dated April 25, 2018, read: “Efforts should be made to locate the missing part of file and if such effort does not result into locating the missing file, then FIR to the effect should be got registered.”
The chargesheet, however, has stated that Chillar had ignored instructions of S N Roy, additional chief secretary (forest), passed on April 27, that “before filing police complaint, let us try to reconstruct the file with the assistance of available record here and in the office of principal chief conservator forest.” “Chillar being superintendent very cleverly put up a viciously prepared note that police report has been lodged and efforts are being made to reconstruct the file. ACS (forest) never authorized him to file such report… In this way, he has committed an act unbecoming of government officer and violated provisions of Haryana service rules,” say Arora’s orders which were passed recently.
Sources in the civil secretariat told TOI that Chillar is about to retire and a charge sheet against him at this stage would deprive him of all his retirements benefits.
Arora said that it is “routine disciplinary action” against an erring official who has been asked to submit his reply. “I don’t even remember complete details about this case, as such actions are issued against several officials,” she said.
CM Manohar Lal Khattar
