Law & the jungle
Environment and forests minister Jayanthi Natarajan’s crackdown on corrupt officials in the forest department has babu circles buzzing. Though barely two months old in the ministry, Ms Natarajan has already acted against three senior forest officials. The most recent instance is the transfer of an inspector general
of forests, C.D. Singh, who was in the Forest Advisory Committee, and two other babus for fudging documents to give clearance for a hydel power project in Himachal Pradesh. Mr Singh and his cohorts now also face a vigilance inquiry.
The Singh episode comes close on the heels of the transfer of the chief conservator of forests in Bhopal, A.K. Raina, for allegedly flouting rules and withholding information from the government. Hopefully, Ms Natarajan’s tough cop posturing is not a one-off instance but a measure that is here to stay.
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No takers for cci
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has not had an easy time since the regulator came into existence. Though created in 2003, it could not get fully going until 2009. In recent weeks the commission has been in the news for controversial decisions in some high-profile cases. But while these may be teething problems for the nascent anti-trust regulator, it faces a much bigger challenge — staff crunch, with as many as half the vacancies remaining vacant, including that of the next chairman after Dhanendra Kumar who retired in June.
According to sources, former finance secretary Ashok Chawla’s name was proposed by the corporate affairs ministry but stiff opposition from other CCI members put the proposal in the deep freeze. Mr Chawla heads the Committee on Allocation of Natural Resources.
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Object then regret
Seniority is no shield for a bureaucrat who has fallen foul of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati. And Promilla Shanker is the senior-most IAS officer in the state, even senior to chief secretary Anoop Mishra. Babu circles are abuzz with the news of Ms Shanker’s suspension by the government for apparently going AWOL. The how and why, of course, depend on who one speaks to. Ms Shanker, who belongs to the 1976 IAS batch, apparently travelled to Colombo last month without government permission. According to insiders, this breach of rules was serious enough to merit her suspension. But the grapevine has it that Ms Shanker is really paying the price for opposing Ms Mayawati’s ambitious (and highly controversial) plan to develop townships along the Yamuna Expressway, saying that it was in violation of the NCR plan devised by the Centre.
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