HC Gupta former Coal Secretary
By Amrit Pal Singh Brar
Bathinda, 6 December, 2018: The conviction of three senior IAS officers, HC Gupta, KS Kropha then a Joint Secretary Coal and KC Samria then Director in Coal department has sent shock waves in the bureau racy and their is a view within section of civil servants that “honest” officers were being made a scape goat. These officers were convicted last week by a CBI court.
For the first the IAS officers association and retired officers have come out to stand by the three IAS officers, who have been convicted in the coal scam last week. They have vowed to stand behind these three officers and took a decision to help the officers to seek a legal remedy at the next level. They have also decided to collect funds through donations from their salaries.
Punjab IAS officers have also come out by showing their solidarity with the officers by posting “I stand by HC Gupta, KS Kropha, KC Samria # IAS” as personal DP on their cell phones. The officers are Abhinav Trikha, Kamal Yadav, Anindita Mitra, Amit Kumar, Neelima, Varinder Sharma, Kulwant Singh, MK Aravind, Jaspreet Singh, Sakshi Sawhney, Surabhi Malik, Girish Dayalan, Vanit Kumar and PCS Harjit Singh Sandhu. Anindita Mitra has replaced the DP after keeping it for two days.
The officers have been convicted of cheating, criminal conspiracy and corruption under provisions of the IPC and the Prevention of Corruption Act in the allocation of a coal block in West Bengal for captive use of a private company, Ms VMPL. The CBI had registered an FIR in the case in September 2012.
Though, the government amended the prevention of corruption act to protect officers for their bonafide decisions during their tenure, but in the current case (HC Gupta) this will not be applicable as the case was registered before the amendments were carried out.