Reflections of a civil servant

In 1969, I was Joint Collector, Hyderabad. In those days Ranga Reddy district was not in existence and the District of Hyderabad comprised the urban district of Hyderabad and what is now Ranga Reddy district. That was the time when the first agitation for a separate Telangana state was launched.

K Brahmananda Reddy was the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh In mid-October 1969, I was posted as District Revenue Officer, Guntur, but was informed by the Chief Secretary MT Raju ICS that the Government’s intention was actually to post me as Collector there, but since the departing Collector was in Japan on an official programme till the following January and his family had to continue to live there, I had to be Collector “in charge” of the district till I would assume charge as Collector on the former’s return from Japan.

1969 was a difficult year and coastal Andhra Pradesh had had a series of cyclones, the first one occurring on May 19 at the height of summer followed by repeated cyclones right through the year, with heavy loss of human life, crop and cattle. Thus there was serious work to do in terms of relief, rehabilitation and restoration of irrigation and drainage works, and weaker sections housing as well.

I reached Guntur and assumed charge as Collector-in-charge on the October 26, 1969, fully focused on what awaited me in terms of these priorities. However, an unexpected event overtook these preparations of mine, in the wake of my joining there.

Hardly had I reached Guntur when I was called on the telephone late in the evening by BK Rao IAS, Additional Secretary in the Department of Agriculture.

He told me that there was a pending assurance given by the Minister of Agriculture Kakani Venkata Ratnam on the floor of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council that the state government would obtain an Enquiry Report from the Collector, Guntur on allegations made against the former Block Development Officer, Panchayat Samiti, Nadendla that there were large scale misappropriations by him, resulting from loans purportedly issued by him to the farmers under the Intensive Manuring Scheme (IMS) but which had not actually been disbursed. The issue was, while no IMS loans had been issued, records had been created to that effect, and a large number of farmers had been now issued with notices to repay those loans and were threatened with their recovery as if they were arrears of land revenue. Such a procedure would involve attachment of properties of the blemishless farmers.

There was uproar from the farmers and in the Legislature and the Additional Secretary told me that while an assurance had been given to the Legislative Council that the Collector’s report would be obtained by the Government immediately and some respite earned from the legislature’s wrath, the report had actually not been received over a long period despite reminders.

The Assurances Committee had warned the Government and the Minister of Agriculture had been seriously embarrassed. Now that I had taken charge, would I ensure at once the submission of the promised report and save further damage to the Government’ s standing before the legislature?

Now, Nadendla Panchayat Samiti was in the Narasaraopet revenue division of Guntur District from where K Brahmananda Reddy, the Chief Minister himself hailed. The Block Development Officer concerned was a close confidant of the political powers that be and he had been the Block Development Officer there continuously over a period of several years, even after he had attained the rank of a District Agriculture Officer.

He was currently the Deputy Director of Agriculture, Guntur, and the top officer in the department of agriculture in the district. In terms of the Andhra Pradesh administrative reforms that had been brought about in 1967 (GOMs. 77) by the Government of Andhra Pradesh, known then famously as the MT Raju Reforms, for strengthening the institution of the District Collector as the development head of all development departments such as agriculture, industry, cooperation etc., this post of Deputy Director was a powerful one with his status being known euphemistically as PA to Collector (Agriculture). In other words he was Collector for all matters pertaining to agriculture even as the Collector was the Director of Agriculture at the district level for all practical purposes. Thus this officer had continued in the same District all his official life and was now at his zenith, including politically.

I summoned the Revenue Divisional Officer, Narasaraopet, promptly and he met me at my residence early the next morning. I had known him as a fine officer because he had been the Huzur Sheristadar of the Collector’s Office, Nellore, the district where I had been trained five to six years earlier as Assistant Collector. He confirmed that the report was indeed pending with him and I could make out that the delay was because he was uncertain whether the “authorities” were really serious about this report “in black and white”. After his meeting with him, the report reached me in a matter of days and clearly showed culpability on the part of the BDO.

Significantly, I also noticed that among the mass of documents there was a receipt issued by the BDO to a fertiliser dealer for the money received by him in his capacity as BDO. I examined the cash book and the ledgers one month on either side of the date of the receipt to verify if that amount had been credited to the Samiti accounts. Indeed it had not been. I therefore summoned the Deputy Director of Agriculture and recorded a statement from him in my own hand after asking him to verify that the signature was indeed his, and the cash book and the ledgers, and that the money had not been brought to the cash book or the concerned ledgers or remitted into the treasury.

The statement was signed by him admitting to these facts. This is what we call misappropriation in law. Nobody had expected this would be done or could be done, least of all the Deputy Director of Agriculture himself. I promptly suspended the village officers involved and the agricultural extension officers involved.

That had not been thought possible by anyone in the official or non-official circles in the district. I called the Additional Secretary BK Rao, IAS, to brief him on all the action taken and then sought the Government’s permission to issue an order of suspension of the Deputy Director of Agriculture by me, subject to its ratification by the Government.

The Deputy Director of Agriculture was a Class I officer of the Government and only the Government could suspend him, which meant approval by the Chief Minister on the file. The Collector had no competence in law to suspend the Deputy Director of Agriculture. My argument to the Additional Secretary was that given the clout of the Deputy Director of Agriculture, it was unlikely the Government would ever suspend him whereas if I did that because of the serious nature of the offence, it would be a fait accompli and the Secretary would find it easy to get it ratified on that ground.

I argued that I had already suspended the junior officers but if the senior most among the wrong doers were to avoid action that would be a grave set back to justice, not to mention the public uproar that would result from the Government not touching the bigger offender.

BK Rao agreed with my logic but counselled me to have faith in my seniors and not to spoil my case by making an order, however morally justified, that would be procedurally difficult to defend. I deferred to him reluctantly and dispatched the report by a special messenger to the Government by the November 11, 1969, within a fortnight of my arriving in Guntur. Meanwhile, the action taken had aroused the public opinion in Guntur in no small measure.

The Government file was swiftly processed by the Additional Secretary and signed by the Secretary EV Ram Reddy, IAS, accepting my recommendation calling for suspension of the Deputy Director of Agriculture and making further investigations. When the file was submitted to Kakani Venkata Ratnam, the Minister, he signed it but fearing that if he sent it to the Chief Minister through the usual channels it was unlikely to see the light of the day, he personally took the file to the Chief Minister Brahmananda Reddy. The CM read the file and affixed his signature approving the suspension of the Deputy Director of Agriculture, Guntur.

Those days AP was ruled by a single political party - the Congress. Several Congress MLAs angrily confronted the Chief Minister on his next visit at the Government Guest House, Guntur, asking him how he could have ordered the suspension of such a loyal officer and also faulted him for having thoughtlessly posted some anaamakudu like me as Collector, which is what had led to this unheard of development.

There was the inevitable demand for my instant transfer. A calm Chief Minister told the angry party men that the Collector’s report was so ‘cast iron’ that if any of them had read the report, they would have also just approved the file as recommended. And as for the demand for my transfer, he thought I should go as Collector of the district of Prakasam, which was then being newly created, carved out of Guntur, Nellore and Kurnool. This idea was summarily shot down by one of his most trusted lieutenants whose exclusive sphere of influence Prakasam district was going to be. Despite all this Brahmananda Reddy did wish and ensured that I should still be a Collector and posted me as Collector of Warangal.

Thus ended my stint in Guntur, from where I went as Collector, Warangal in February 1970. One person who missed me most was my camp clerk K Jagannadham, who still lives in Guntur and who had typed that report. We exchange notes even today.

The story of Warangal and Brahmananda Reddy will follow in the next article which will include a reference to a future Prime Minister of India PV Narasimha Rao who was Education Minister in Brahmananda Reddy’s cabinet at the time.

The moral of this story is that in those days we had political leaders who were not merely impeccably fair to officers whose actions could have politically inconvenienced them very substantially. They even offered to such officers continued and greater opportunities for their work, so long as such inconvenience was not occasioned by conduct politically motivated on the part of the officers but resulted from actions based on facts and law objectively considered and applied in the public interest. And we had seniors who were fearlessly upright.

We need to bring those days back. While that possibility is as much in the hands of the officers as in those of the political electives, the former should give notice by standing up to the latter wherever they are wrong. In this process the question of paying a price does not arise so long as we take responsibility for the consequences of the choice of our actions. Why should Warangal be deemed cheaper than Guntur?