IAS officer shunted out made scapegoat by State says Supreme Court

New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Monday pulled up the Uttar Pradesh government for making a senior IAS officer a “scapegoat” by shunting him out for giving “false” information to court and blaming the chief minister’s office for not processing files related to remission of sentences of convicts when the model code of conduct was in force.

The top court said state government officials did not open the email of the jail authorities intimating them about the order of the court that the model code of conduct (MCC), which was in force till June 6 on account of the Lok Sabha elections, will not come in the way of processing the files on remission of sentences.

A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Augustine George Masih said it will go deep into the matter to ascertain the truth and gave one last opportunity to the state government to come clean by giving the exact sequence of events following its May 13 order on processing the files related to remission.

“We direct the chief secretary of the state to file a personal affidavit in this court to explain the entire episode and the conduct of the state and its officers by September 24,” the bench said.

The top court also issued a show cause notice to senior IAS officer Rajesh Kumar Singh, who until recently was the principal secretary of Uttar Pradesh’s prison administration department before being shunted out on September 7 by the state government for “misleading” the court. “Prime facie it appears to us that the stand taken by him (the IAS officer) in the affidavit is contrary to the statements made by him on August 12 when he appeared virtually,” the bench said while issuing notice to Singh as to why proceedings for criminal contempt should not be initiated against him.

“Because of him, someone’s liberty was at stake,” the bench said and directed that notice be also issued against the IAS officer for initiating perjury proceedings for making contradictory statements before the court. Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj, appearing for the UP government, said the IAS officer has been recently relieved of all his duties and disciplinary action has been initiated against him. “Prime facie, we find that he is being made scapegoat by the state government. This is because from the records it is clear that a section officer did not open the email intimating our orders from the jail authorities till June 6, when the Model Code of Conduct got over. It means until then the files did not move a single inch,” the bench told Additional Advocate General Garima Prasad, appearing for the state government. “Entire state machinery was sleeping,” the bench observed while noting that the act of not processing the remission files during the operation of the model code of conduct “was clear defiance of our orders.”