HC ire over junior staff being made scapegoats to save babus

There is no dearth of officers who pretend highest concern for transparency, even while being soft towards their colleagues and harsh against petty employees

Hyderabad: While making strong and critical observations against the State government officers, a division bench of the AP High Court comprising Justice L Narasimha Reddy and Justice SV Bhatt on Monday faulted the entire approach of bureaucracy for punishing the junior and petty officers to cover up the irregularities and illegalities of senior officials.

The bench was dealing with a writ petition filed by J Rajaiah, a junior assistant, who had to face the ire of senior officials to cover up the wrongdoings of District Collector Karimnagar. Based on certain alleged irregularities, in proposals to regularise 21 daily wage employees, actions were initiated against the district panchayat officer (DPO) and the petitioner. However, while the DPO was exonerated, the petitioner was given the punishment of compulsory retirement from service. On the directions from the State Service Tribunal, when the petitioner preferred an appeal against the punishment, the concerned Principal Secretary issued a show-cause notice asking him to explain why the punishment should not be enhanced to one of removal from service and by an order in February 2010, issued orders of removal from service.
Taking a strong exception of this, Justice Narasimha Reddy pointed out that there cannot be a better instance of discrimination and arbitrariness than this. Unfortunately, he said, it is on account of the unusual protection being accorded by the senior officials in the administration that the irregularities or illegalities of highest order are taking place with impunity. And to show to the public that they do not tolerate such acts, they target the petty persons, he added. Faulting the Principal Secretary for turning a blind eye to the actions taken by the District Collector and punishing the Junior Assistant, who had no role in the decision-making, the bench said, “The unfortunate part of the matter is that there is no dearth of such officers who pretend highest concern for transparency, even while being soft towards their colleagues and harsh against petty employees.”