Bengal: Centre’s ‘major penalty’ notice on ex-CS Alapan Bandyopadhyay

KOLKATA: The Centre has initiated “major penalty proceedings” against former Bengal chief secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay, asking him to respond within a month to the charges framed against him for failing to attend a Yaas review meeting in Kalaikunda with PM Narendra Modi on May 28.
The proceedings, which can deprive officers of post-retirement benefits partially or fully if proved guilty, comes in the backdrop of a Centre-state stand-off over the 1987-batch IAS officer. The Centre first okayed a three-month extension for Bandyopadhyay as the state’s chief secretary but, four days later, directed him to report to and serve in Delhi. Bandyopadhyay chose to seek retirement on May 31 after the Bengal government refused to release him. The state then appointed him as CM Mamata Banerjee’s chief adviser for a three-year period.
Bandyopadhyay, who suffered a bereavement in the family late last week, was unavailable for comment but senior Bengal government officials confirmed that he had not got “any formal communication till Monday evening”. “All legal formalities, however, should be complied with within deadline,” one of the officials said.
The Centre’s latest notice, sent on June 16, has also asked Bandyopadhyay whether he would like to respond in person. It charges him with “failing to maintain absolute integrity and devotion to duty and exhibiting conduct unbecoming of a public servant”.
The state government and CM Banerjee have already rebutted the charges against Bandyopadhyay. Inclement weather and lack of air traffic control permission delayed their landing at the Kalaikunda base, Banerjee had explained. She, along with Bandyopadhyay, had then met the PM and “sought his permission” to go to Digha for another Yaas review meeting, the Bengal CM had added. Banerjee has also repeatedly asked the Centre whether the action against Bandyopadhyay was a part of its “political vendetta and vindictiveness”.
The letter sent to Bandyopadhyay informs him that the Centre proposes to hold “major penalty proceedings” against him under Rule 8 of the All-India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1969, and Rule 6 of the All-India Services (Death-cum-Retirement Benefits) Rules, 1958. The rules allow the central government to withhold “pension or gratuity, or both, either in full or in part, whether permanently or for a specified period” if officers are proved guilty.
Bengal chief secretary H K Dwivedi has already responded to a department of personnel and training notice, explaining that Bandyopadhyay retired on May 31, that the state government chose not to release him to take up the Delhi assignment and that Bandyopadhyay was not even empanelled with the Centre.
CM Banerjee had written to the Centre before about the state government’s inability to release Bandyopadhyay and questioned its move to summon him to Delhi barely four days after approving her request to let him continue as the state chief secretary for three months.