A whistle blower suffers for raising voice

Vinod Kumar Gupta, 10-Dec-2010
A whistle blower suffers for raising voice against corruption in DVC Friday December 10, 2010 Calcutta A K Jain, Deputy Chief Engineer Damodar Valley Corporation blew the whistle against corruption and mismanagement in the corporation five years ago and fought different battles leading to repatriation of high officials but he is waiting for his long overdue promotion. He was issued various charge sheets for making complaints against high officials indulging in corruption and even his dismissal from service was imitated for seeking information under Right to Information Act. Jain was issued charge-sheet in May 2005 for making complaint before the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) for different cases of corruption. This charge-sheet was withdrawn later after intervention of the then Central Vigilance Commissioner P. Shankar. DVC transferred him from Maithon to Kolkata on April 9 2008 and released next day by a release order served in the evening of April 10. He was threatened by a criminal on April 16 while he was on transit leave. On joining April 22 at Kolkata he was served with an explanation letter for purchase of 60 MT cement, while he was working as Dy CE, TSC at Maithon. No job was allotted to him in spite of his pointing out to the Director concerned till August 03.10. For his filing RTI applications, the then DVC management decided to terminate his services but they could not do so as Solicitor General did not opine to this effect. Another law firm at Kolkata was also consulted in this respect, they also did not agree and thereafter they decided to charge-sheet him one after another bringing false and fabricated charges. One charge-sheet was issued on 15.12.2008 for some news published on 07.12.2008, the reply against which was submitted in time on 22.12.2008. However; he has been exonerated of the charges by the present management few days back only. Two more charge-sheets were issued on 06.02.2009, one for asking for leave to attend appointed meeting with Addl. Secretary, CVC on 26.12.2008 for apprising him about life threat and mental torture by DVC management and other one for procurement of 60 MT of cement on urgent basis. The charge sheets were initiated purely with malafied intension in connivance with the then management for raising voice against corrupt practices of the management. It may be mentioned that two successive Chairmen Asim Kumar Barman and Subrata Biswas were removed from DVC after Jain and All India Power Engineers' Federation took up the matter with CVC and PMO .The matter was also raised by Medha Patkar, Kuldip Nayar and Pushpraj .