New Delhi: In January, when Uttar Pradesh was named an “achiever”, along with other states and UTs, on a logistics performance index prepared by Centre’s Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), IAS officer Abhishek Prakash was sent to collect the award.
Prakash, then the chief executive officer of Invest UP, was the star performer of the Yogi Adityanath-led government. About three months later, Prakash finds himself embroiled in a controversy, having been suspended for allegedly demanding commission from a firm for the contract of a solar project under Invest UP.
Prakash, an IAS officer of 2006 batch, was suspended by the Uttar Pradesh government on 20 March, soon after the arrest of a broker called Nikant Jain, who was allegedly his man to collect the “commission” from the promoters of the firm seeking the contract.
Last week, the Enforcement Directorate sought case files from the Uttar Pradesh Police. However, it is waiting to hear from the state government about the exact grounds of suspension. A call to launch a formal money laundering probe will be taken only after the government clears the air on the bribery charges against Prakash and the extent of the alleged offence.
The case stems from a complaint filed by an employee of a solar and renewable energy firm that was allegedly asked by Prakash to contact Jain, who subsequently sought a five percent “commission”. The complaint was made to Uttar Pradesh Chief Secretary Manoj Kumar Singh, springing the government into action. An FIR was filed, Jain was arrested, and then the chief minister suspended Prakash.
Sources in the agency confirmed to ThePrint that the original copy of the suspension order has been sought to officially link him to the case in which Jain was arrested.
“Since Prakash has not been named as an accused, there is an ambiguity about the extent of bribery allegations and whether a bribe was paid in the instant matter. Only when the government clarifies if it has found linkages of corruption and kickbacks by him as Invest UP CEO will a call on registering an ECIR (Enforcement Complaint Information Report) be taken,” an ED official said.
Meanwhile, the state’s Department of Appointment and Personnel has issued a chargesheet against Prakash, seeking his response to the allegations. A call on initiating a departmental inquiry will be taken after consideration of his reply, ThePrint has learnt.
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Born in 1982, Prakash—who hails from Bihar and is an Indian Institute of Technology graduate—qualified for the Union Public Service Commission in 2005, securing All India Rank 8. He was allotted the Nagaland cadre, where he started his career as a sub-divisional officer in the Tuensang district.
He served in the state till May 2011, when he was transferred after he married an IAS officer of Uttar Pradesh cadre.
While he was working in the finance department in the final year of Mayawati’s tenure as chief minister, Lakhimpur Khiri was rocked by a violent clash between a group of lekhpals—employees of the revenue department—and lawyers.
The clash had left two lawyers dead in indiscriminate firing by lekhpals, followed by the lawyers going on a rampage in September 2011. Days later, Mayawati ordered a judicial inquiry into the incident, but not before publicly accepting that the incident could have been avoided.
The Bahujan Samaj Party supremo immediately transferred the then district magistrate and sub-divisional magistrate of Lakhimpur Khiri, and roped in Prakash. The government had reportedly made it public that the incumbent DM had been replaced with Prakash to ensure an impartial judicial probe by the government.
He continued at the district until the next government under first-time chief minister Akhilesh Yadav faced a similar law and order challenge in Bareilly. Communal violence had rocked the district, claiming four lives, prompting Yadav to shunt both the district magistrate and district police chief at the time.
Prakash was then roped in as the Bareilly district magistrate by the Samajwadi Party government in July 2012.
Prakash’s first posting directly under Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath came in November 2017, when he was brought in as a Special Secretary in the home department.
Then, he was appointed as the Hamirpur district magistrate. After more than a year there, the government brought him to the important position of Lucknow district magistrate in November 2019.
A land allotment issue from that period has returned to haunt Prakash amid the current controversy. In August 2021, the Uttar Pradesh government had allotted approximately 200 acres of land in Bhatgaon village in Lucknow to establish a state-of-the-art facility for producing next-generation BrahMos missiles. However, the government had later found discrepancies in compensation to land owners, prompting the government to constitute a committee.
The committee submitted its report in July last year, alleging irregularities in the acquisition of the land and payment of compensation, virtually indicting Prakash, who was the chairman of the acquisition committee as the Lucknow district magistrate.
In June 2022, Prakash was appointed secretary in-charge of the Infrastructure & Industries Development Department in the Yogi government, and the CEO of Invest UP—the government’s dedicated department for business development in the state.
The current row
On 20 March, an employee of a Rajasthan-based firm in the renewable energy space, SAEL Solar P6 Private Limited, wrote to the state’s Chief Secretary Manoj Kumar Singh, complaining that a “senior officer of Invest UP” had asked him to contact one private person with the last name Jain for the contract.
“Before considering the case, a senior officer of Invest UP gave me the number of a private person, Mr. Jain, and told me to talk to him. If he says so, the Empowered Committee and Cabinet will immediately approve your case. It will be done as per his request,” he had written in the complaint.
Jain had allegedly sought five percent commission from the amount of the contract that his employer firm was seeking. The offer was declined as the firm’s top executive had already met the chief minister.
“Later, I found out that after the recommendation in my case, the matter had been postponed. Mr. Jain told me that no matter how hard we and our boss tried, we would have to come to him, only then the work would be done… My boss can also take this project to another state. In such a situation, I request you to please take action against these people and approve our project,” the employee had further alleged.
The state police arrested Lucknow-based agent, Jain, the same day after registering an FIR under 308 (5) of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, and relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
The state government then suspended Prakash the same day, conceding that Prakash had acted with “malicious intent, vested interest and unfair financial gain” concerning the solar firm, which would have tarnished the state’s image and derailed the investment sentiment of prospective firms in its office memorandum.
However, a senior Uttar Pradesh government official privy to the policy planning said the government is not looking to review all investment proposals approved during Prakash’s tenure as Invest UP CEO. “Reviewing all investment proposals and actual investments with suspicion will defeat the very purpose of establishing Invest UP.”
This was the second major controversy surrounding Invest UP, with another row revolving around a firm named VueNow, which had signed a memorandum of understanding worth Rs 13,500 crore to establish data centres across the state. According to a money laundering probe by the ED, the firm allegedly duped investors of Rs 3,500 crore.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
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