BK Prasad, the top home ministry official who investigated the ‘missing’ Ishrat Jahan papers, has a cushy job awaiting him when he finishes the probe.
The government on Thursday appointed Prasad as secretary of the National Commission for De-notified, Nomadic & Semi-nomadic Tribes for two years.
Prasad’s appointment is unusual since the Tamil Nadu-cadre IAS officer of the 1983 batch had turned 60 in May this year. He was on extension to let him complete the probe into the missing papers from the Ishrat files. But the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet headed by the PM appears to have given him an extended tenure.
“Shri BK Prasad, lAS (TN 83), Additional Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, as Secretary, National Commission for Denotified, Nomadic & Semi-nomadic Tribes vice Shri H.K. Dash for a period of two years,” the ACC order said, without mentioning if the assignment is on contract or re-employment.
Read: My stand on Ishrat Jahan vindicated, BJP created fake controversy: Chidambaram
The missing documents that Prasad was probing relate to preparation of a 2009 affidavit that did not mention Ishrat’s terror links and was filed by the previous Congress government in the Gujarat high court. An earlier affidavit had linked the 19-year-old Mumbai college girl and the three others to the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist outfit.
{{/usCountry}}The missing documents that Prasad was probing relate to preparation of a 2009 affidavit that did not mention Ishrat’s terror links and was filed by the previous Congress government in the Gujarat high court. An earlier affidavit had linked the 19-year-old Mumbai college girl and the three others to the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist outfit.
{{/usCountry}}Prasad obliquely laid the blame for the five missing papers at former home minister P Chidambaram’s doors. In his initial report to home minister Rajnath Singh, he said the papers were “removed knowingly or unknowingly or misplaced” in September 2009, a period when Chidambaram was the home minister.
Later, the Congress accused the prime minister’s office of running a “dirty tricks department” amid reports that Prasad may have manipulated the probe. Chidambaram had accused the BJP-led government of creating a “fake controversy” over the documents.