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IRS officer B Balamurugan who criticised finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman suspended by Centre
IRS officer B Balamurugan had accused finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman of turning Enforcement Directorate (ED) into a political instrument of BJP
Indian Revenue Services (IRS) officer B Balamurugan who accused Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman of turning the Enforcement Directorate (ED) into a political instrument of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was on January 29 suspended by the Union government.
A suspension order from the Union ministry of finance said that “disciplinary proceedings are contemplated” against Balamurugan who holds the rank of deputy commissioner, Goods and Service Tax (GST) in Chennai. The order, a copy of which HT has seen, did not cite any other reason. And the suspended IRS officer is set to retire on January 31.
What is the ED controversy regarding Dalit farmers?
It was over the controversy over ED issuing summons to two Dalit farmers in Tamil Nadu (which it later closed); the suspended IRS officer had written to President Droupadi Murmu on January 2 calling for Sitharaman to be sacked. The two farmers aged 72 and 67 had accused a local BJP leader of trying to illegally grab their land. “The above incident shows how the Enforcement Directorate has become an extended arm of the BJP,” he said in his letter. “In fact, the finance minister Nirmala Sitaraman, after taking over the charge, has successfully converted the Enforcement Directorate into BJP Policy Enforcement Directorate,” he said in the letter to the President.
ED had issued the summons to the farmers last July which resurfaced on social media earlier this month triggering a controversy since their caste was mentioned in the summons and ECIR (Enforcement Case Information Report), which is equivalent to a first information report (FIR).
On January 4, HT reported that ED officials said that the case against farmer S Kannaiyan and S Krishnan was closed, as the predicate offence based on which the probe began was already. The federal agency had no intention of harassing the farmers, they had said.
“I’m also a Dalit. I knew the difficulties of the farmers,” the suspended IRS officer told HT. Following this incident, when central government offices were closed for half a day for the Ram temple consecration in Uttar Pradesh’s Ayodhya on January 22, he had written to Sitharaman and the Union revenue secretary that he wished to work. “Only our office in Chennai was functioning for me to work. This irritated them more. Obviously because of these two incidents, I’m suspended. They want to teach me a lesson.”
