Chandigarh: Haryana IAS officer D. Suresh has written to the state director general of police seeking protection for his family against the “illegal and unauthorised/monstrous behaviour of officials of the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB, formerly state vigilance bureau)”.
His 12 May letter comes days after his wife and editor-in-chief of Gurugram-based Power Sportz TV Kanthi D. Suresh wrote to the DGP, headquarters, seeking an FIR against some vigilance officials for “illegally” raiding her office in Gurugram. ThePrint has seen both letters.
D. Suresh, a 1995-batch IAS officer currently posted in Delhi as resident commissioner of Haryana, had also shot off a letter to the chief secretary for registration of an FIR against alleged illegal investigation and criminal misconduct by the ACB. He also sought quashing of the bureau’s “illegal” 27 April proposal for government permission to proceed against him in connection with the allotment of a Gurugram plot in 2019.
“On account of my vehement opposition to their illegal and criminal activities, I fear for the safety of my family, especially given that the officials of the ACB are now functioning like criminals/goondas who are resorting to extortion, kidnapping, criminal trespass, torture, forgery, bribery etc. and who have scant respect for the law,” the IAS officer wrote in his letter to DGP P. K. Agrawal, seeking security for his wife at Gurugram office, and for their family residence.
Meanwhile, in his letter to Chief Secretary Sanjeev Kaushal a day ago, D. Suresh claimed that the purported ACB inquiries into decisions taken by him as chief administrator of the Haryana Shehri Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP) were an abject violation of the law, since he was discharging his quasi-judicial functions.
In 2020, the state vigilance bureau had recommended action against D. Suresh and others for allegedly causing loss to urban planning body HSVP (formerly Haryana Urban Development Authority) by re-allotting a plot in 2019 to a school in Gurugram at land rates prevailing in 1993. The ACB, this April, sought government permission to proceed in action against him.
In that context, D. Suresh’s letter to the chief secretary stated, “No permission be granted for a proposal to grant a preliminary inquiry under Section 17-A of the PC Act [Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988] when the basis of such proposal is an unauthorised investigation already carried out without prior permission, material collected by violation of the undersigned’s constitutional right to privacy, intimidation, extortion, and illegal extortion.”
He requested that the ACB be barred from making statements before any court of law without prior permission of the government. “…the ACB has been submitting written statements in various courts about WhatsApp chats of the undersigned and his family with private individuals and the same is being done regularly without the state government’s permission or even having knowledge of the same,” he wrote.
The IAS officer added that, being a subordinate branch under the office of the chief secretary, the director general, vigilance, is expected to take the approval of the former’s before making such statements in court.
“This is an illegality for which DG, Vigilance, is liable to be charge-sheeted. Further, the office of the Advocate General be informed that written statements/averments of the office of DG, Vigilance, be not defended without prior approval of the office of the CS,” he suggested in his letter.
In a related development, the Punjab and Haryana High Court Tuesday directed the state government to respond by 30 May to D. Suresh’s plea seeking quashing of the inquiry against him.
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What’s the case
The matter pertains to the re-allotment of a costly plot in Gurugram to a school in 2019, allegedly at 1993 rates. D. Suresh was then serving as the chief administrator of HSVP.
On the case, D. Suresh’s letter to the chief secretary stated that the ACB initiated a probe even before the issue was brought to the government’s notice or the latter’s permission sought, adding, “The ACB initiated an enquiry with regard to the order passed by me in an official capacity for the allotment of 1.5 acres of school site in favour of Spring Dale Public School.”
He also said that he passed the order in quasi judicial proceedings and it can be challenged by appeal, revision etc, but he cannot be asked to explain the legality of such an order.
Claiming that he passed the order “pursuant to the directions passed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court,” the IAS officer pointed out that the ACB cannot inquire “the legality of the order” without prior approval of the state government.
He also referred to his letter dated 3 January to the chief secretary, seeking the constitution of a committee comprising three senior officers of the rank of additional chief secretary for conducting a thorough enquiry into the “mala fide and non-transparent functioning of the ACB”.
‘HSVP suffered Rs 25-cr loss because of allotment’
The IAS officer’s name cropped up in a probe report of the ACB, filed in 2019, on the land allotment. “Chief Administrator, HSVP (D. Suresh), passed a fresh order on 14 May 2019, making 1.5 acres of land in favour of the school which was clearly revisiting the entire issue despite the government having declined the prayer of the allottee and the HC also upholding it,” the report, seen by ThePrint read.
It alleged that “the HSVP suffered a loss of Rs 25 crore because of this allotment”.
The high court had cited these findings 16 March in a related case where the Society representing the school sought to withdraw an earlier plea before the court. The plea had sought quashing of the chief secretary’s direction to DG, Vigilance, in November 2022 to register an FIR against the Society under sections 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using forged document) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.
The court had said that according to the state vigilance, an accused in a related case had claimed he had paid Rs 25 lakh to D. Suresh, the then chief administrator, for possession of the said land. ThePrint has a copy of the order.
Quashing the plea, the HC had said, “Ordinarily, such prayer out (ought) to be accede (acceded) to, however, taking into consideration the chronology of events noted above the well-knit nexus of the accused persons with the senior functionaries of the bureaucracy, and disclosures of the pecuniary and financial interests of the functionaries clearly showed the reach of the accused persons (sic).”
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
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