Patna: An IAS officer is making waves in the corridors of power in Patna. Additional Chief Secretary (Education) K. K. Pathak barred the private secretary of Education Minister Chandrashekhar from entering the department last month. The minister could do little, and the 1990 batch Bihar cadre officer had the last laugh as last week, the Nitish Kumar government issued an order that personal assistants of ministers must not interfere in any official work.
Pathak then banned coaching classes during school and college hours. Next came an order to college teachers to submit a daily report on what they taught in their classes and how many students attended. The latest is the cutting down of 12 festive holidays for schools.
Yet, this is not the first time Pathak is in the news. In the mid-1990s, as Barh sub-divisional officer (SDO), he was about to bulldoze the ancestral home of present chief minister Nitish Kumar, located on the national highway in Bakhtiyarpur. During that period, Nitish had formed his Samata Party and had stepped up his anti-Lalu battle.
A senior Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader then approached Lalu Prasad Yadav, who was chief minister at the time, saying that the bulldozing of Nitish’s ancestral home would send a wrong message to the masses. Lalu then got Pathak transferred before he could touch Nitish’s home.
“Laluji told me that had it been any other officer, he would have made the call and gotten the demolition stopped, but Pathak will not listen,” recalled the senior RJD leader. Now, it is Pathak who Nitish turns to whenever he wants a job to be done, it is learnt.
ThePrint reached Pathak for comment via phone calls but did not get a response. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.
Also Read: ‘Rant’ against deputy collector lands Bihar IAS officer Pathak in another row, FIR lodged
When a minister had to retreat
From banning coaching classes during school hours, deducting salaries of teachers found absent and asking education department officials to not only conduct inspections in schools but also teach the students, Pathak’s orders have been creating quite a stir.
Immediately after Pathak joined the education department, Chandrasekhar is said to have gotten his personal assistant (PA) to write to Pathak on a buff sheet saying that the minister disapproved of the way an atmosphere of terror was being created within the department.
Pathak barred the PA from entering the department, and Chandrashekhar did not find support from either Lalu or Nitish, it is learnt. After staying away from office for 23 days, sulking over the row, the minister was back to work after he was told by Lalu that he can be dropped, RJD sources told ThePrint.
When a Congress MLA had to go ‘underground’
When Nitish Kumar imposed a liquor ban in 2016, he brought in K. K. Pathak to head the excise department. Pathak framed the rules, dubbed “draconian” by some. Around 6.5 lakh people have been arrested ever since for violating the anti-liquor law, the Bihar government had informed the assembly in 2022.
“He was so enthusiastic that he even proposed to install CCTVs in Bihar Bhawan, Delhi, to catch persons violating liquor laws. I had to convince him that Bihar laws will not be enforced in Delhi,” recalled a senior retired IAS officer.
It was during his tenure in the excise department that he went after Congress MLA Vinay Verma who, in 2016, was purportedly seen offering liquor in a sting operation video despite prohibition in the state.
The excise department reportedly registered two FIRs against Verma, who was the legislator from Narkatiyaganj. The Congress was part of the ruling alliance in 2016, but Verma allegedly had to go underground to avoid arrest, until he got bail from the court.
When Pathak got a sweeper to inaugurate a hospital ward
When Pathak was district magistrate of Gopalganj in 2005, Sadhu Yadav, Lalu’s brother-in-law was the MP. Sadhu wanted his sister, then CM Rabri Devi, to inaugurate the children’s ward of a local hospital. But as the dates did not work out, Pathak got a sweeper of the hospital to inaugurate the ward, leaving Sadhu angry.
“But now I realise that Pathakji did the right thing. The ward was prepared and lying useless,” Sadhu Yadav told ThePrint.
In 1990, when he was deputy commissioner of Giridih (now in Jharkhand), Pathak was accused of beating up a journalist. In 2019, when he was secretary of the minor irrigation department, he was accused by the owner of a private company of abusing and beating him up.
‘Erratic behaviour’, ‘gets work done’
In February this year, a video went viral showing Pathak verbally abusing a state government official. The Bihar Administrative Services Association (BASA) were up in arms against him, demanding his dismissal. “One trait (heard of) often during Pathak’s tenure is that he is unpopular among politicians and officials, but immensely popular among the people and his own staff because he gets jobs done,” said a retired government official, disapproving of Pathak’s “erratic behaviour”.
M. Diwakar, former director of A N Sinha Institute of Social Sciences, Patna, told ThePrint that his colleagues had advised him against meeting Pathak during the latter’s previous stint in the education department, given his “erratic behaviour”.
“But I got curious and met Pathak in his office. He gave me a patient hearing regarding problems I faced running the institute. He told me that I did not need to come to his department and deputed a few of his staff to get my work done. The work was done at a lightning speed, Pathak is a man of action,” Diwakar said, expressing the hope that Pathak would be allowed to continue because “education in Bihar seriously needs streamlining”.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
Also Read: Bihar IG accuses senior of abusing him in Bihar, focus on Nitish & officers over meltdowns