The Madhya Pradesh government has come under the scanner of Lokayukta for allegedly organising a free dinner for about 250 serving IAS officers with taxpayers’ money. Official sources said about Rs 1.5 lakh was allegedly routed from the exchequer’s account to foot the bill of the dinner hosted late last year by State Chief Secretary Avani Vaish for IAS officers, most of them serving in MP, at a private club here.
The dinner, under the aegis of IAS officers Association Service meet (a private amalgam), was organised on October 8 last year. The ‘felicitation’ has now come under the lens of MP Lokayukta and an investigation into the matter launched.
“We have received the complaint and currently looking into it,” an officer in Lokayukta said.
Ajay Dubey, member of global anti-graft organisation Transparency International said, “It is a sheer violation of government norms.
How can the government pay the bill of a private body (IAS association)? The Chief Secretary has misused his official position to organise this dinner and ensure its payment from the government’s border”.
However, officials here said that the dinner was purely a government affair and no rules were violated.
“It was a government function. We were asked by the General Administration Department to pay the bill. All necessary sanctions were accorded by the senior officials,” said Sanjay Mishra, State Protocol Officer.
The Congress being originally a party to facilitate the British colonial rule in India has all along played a second fiddle to the ICS and its “desi” version-the IAS which is even more venomous in tid anti-people attitude and ever increasing greed, the sky being the limit. It was expected that the Janata rule and years later the NDA (read: BJP) rule will be able to cast away its colonial shackles by cutting the IAS to size and ensuring parity among all civil services of the same group/class. But, instead, NDA-BJP evren bent backward to please this real power in India, ministers being transitory birds who come at regular (at times, at irregular) times to delve in looting and then hibernating to join a new “front” or conglomeration. Keeping the IAS on top and always in good humor, and even behaving as their superiors, is the bane of all political parties, Laluprasad Yadav being the only courageous exception with conviction and clarity of thought about the true character of this parasitic ruling elite of India, the greatest curse on India. Hence the BJP’s subservient conduct in throwing a party to their partners-in-misrule and corruption, and its saviors, is no wonder, In West Bengall, a lifelong non-card holder whole timer of CPI-M has been given the No.2 rank in the cabinet of the petrel of agitation-the fiery Mamata Banerjee.
The question of having obtained the necessary sanctions for the expenditure incurred on a private dinner hosted by the Chief Secretary of Madhya Pradesh for the members of the I.A.S. Officers Association does not arise, as being tried to be justified by the State Senior Protocol Officer in this case, since the provisions of the prevailing law does not permit any such expenditure. In view of such blatant violations of the law by public functionaries and State entities all the time, it has become all the more necessary and urgent to appoint all State Lokayuktas and a Lokpal in the country, and also empowering them suitably as to enable them to take cognisance of abuse of law by various arms of the government and the trust holders in the democratic setup as a whole, and deal out suitable punishment for the offences committed by each entity and individual in every criminal case, without fear or favour.