Photo Source: Babushahi Bureau
IAS officer Ashok Khemka appointed new Transport Secretary, Haryana; transferred 55 times in his career
Ramesh Goyat
Chandigarh, December 3, 2024: Senior IAS officer Dr. Ashok Khemka has been re-appointed with Cabinet Minister Anil Vij. Khemka will now take over the responsibility of Additional Chief Secretary of the Transport Department.
Ashok Khemka has been an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer since 1991. As of January 2023, he has been transferred 55 times in his career, the second most transferred bureaucrat in Haryana after IAS officer Pradeep Kasani.
Khemka is known for his role in addressing alleged irregularities in various departments where he served, including investigations into land deals during the tenure of former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Hooda.
He has been associated with investigations into cases such as the DLF land grab case, the Sonipat-Kharkhauda IMT land case and the Garhi Sampla Uddar Gagan land case.
Ashok Khemka was born in Kolkata, India. He earned a B.Tech degree in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Kharagpur in 1988. He later earned a PhD in Computer Science from TIFR and an MBA in Business Administration and Finance.
After clearing the Civil Services Examination, he was selected for the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in the Haryana cadre. Additionally, he obtained an MA degree in Economics from IGNOU.
Khemka exposed corruption in land deals for the conversion of commercial land in and around Gurgaon. The corruption is between Rs 20,000 crore (US$2 billion) to Rs 350,000 crore (US$42 billion) as per the report. Khemka was most recently Haryana's Director General of Land Consolidation and Land Records-cum-Inspector General of Registration.
During his 80-day tenure in the department, Khemka had caught serious irregularities in land transactions involving the transfer of panchayat land worth several hundred crores of rupees to newly formed real estate companies.
Khemka was transferred on 11 October 2012 and he took action on the case after his transfer. He claims that he has been harassed and transferred 40 times in the last 21 years for merely doing his job.
As managing director of the Haryana Seeds Development Corporation Limited, Khemka exposed irregularities in just five months as its head after which he was transferred on 4 April 2013 and replaced by BS Duggal, a deputy secretary five ranks below him.
The state government constituted an inquiry committee of three senior IAS officers to take Khemka to task for the cancellation of Vadra's land deal in Sikhohpur village (Gurgaon).
Khemka responded to the inquiry committee's report in his comments to the state government, which is divided into 8 chapters. [ citation needed ] Details of Robert Vadra's specific land deal are given in Chapter 6.
Gurgaon Lok Sabha member Rao Inderjit Singh had said that a detailed probe should be conducted to "confirm or deny" the allegations against Robert Vadra, whose business dealings with real estate major DLF have been questioned by Ashok Khemka.He said Vadra's land deals should be part of a larger probe into alleged irregularities in the allocation and sale of about 1,200 acres of land by the government.
Khemka alleged that he received death threats after he raised concerns over illegal land acquisition by Robert Vadra (Priyanka Gandhi's husband). He had raised a red flag over suspicious land deals between Robert Vadra, son-in-law of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
In November 2023, the Haryana government appointed Financial Commissioner, Revenue, TVSN Prasad to look into a series of complaints made by Ashok Khemka against another officer, Sanjeev Verma.
In March 2024, the Supreme Court set aside the High Court order on the higher ACR grade to Officer Ashok Khemka.