President quashes Haryana govt’s case against whistleblower officer

President Pranab Mukherjee has quashed a charge sheet filed by the Haryana government against Sanjeev Chaturvedi, a whistleblower from the Indian Forest Service (IFS).

President Pranab Mukherjee has quashed a charge sheet filed by the Haryana government against Sanjeev Chaturvedi, a whistleblower from the Indian Forest Service (IFS).

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An order — issued on behalf of the President by the environment ministry, the cadre controlling authority for IFS officers — directs Haryana to revoke the inquiry against the 2002 batch officer with immediate effect.

The President found the charges against Chaturvedi were “unsustainable” and that the inquiry “deserves to be revoked”. This is possibly the third time in the last five years that the president of India has intervened to quash the orders of Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda in the same officer’s case.

Haryana accused Chaturvedi, presently posted at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, of inefficiency for his alleged failure in implementing a plantation programme in Jhajjar district and instituted an inquiry against him.

But in a representation to the President last year, Chaturvedi alleged he was being victimized for exposing a scam in Jhajjar in which a top state political functionary benefited from public money meant to develop a herbal park. Chaturvedi submitted documents obtained under RTI to prove that the inquiry was constituted on the behest of Hooda’s office.