Third Extension Granted To Bihar Chief Secretary

The state personnel secretary, B K Haldhar, issued a notification on Saturday (August 31, 1996) extending his services upto February 28, 1997 after getting the clearance from the Union home ministry. The extension granted to Basak has not only irked opposition leaders but the ruling party MPs, MLAs and officials of other cadres.

The chief secretary is at the receiving end since he had issued two controversial circulars. One had asked government servants to fix time for meeting public representatives and not to entertain their pairvi (recommendation) letter. The second circular empowered divisional commissioners and district magistrates to requisition the services of the government servants to complete pending works.

The chief secretary earned the wrath of the political leaders for issuing the circular that disciplinary action would be taken against those officials who entertained the political pairivi.

Taking serious exception to the circulars issued by the chief secretary, Munshi Lal Rai, a senior JD MLA said that he was examining the circular and seeking legal opinion to bring a privilege motion against the chief secretary. Another JD MLA and a former minister Ganesh Prasad Yadav went a step further in criticising the chief secretary and said that a bureaucrat who himself had got his service extension through pairivi was issuing such derogatory circulars in a bid to insult the public representatives. Similar sentiments were also expressed by the members of the shouting brigade of the chief minister including Vikram Kunwar Chandrika Rai (both MLAs) and Ram Bahadur Rai, MP.

Taking exception to extension granted to Basak, the vice president of the Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee, Ram Jatan Sinha, MLA said that such job extensions promoted autocracy in the bureaucracy. He expressed surprise as to how an official who was severely indicted and censored by the elections Commission for his partisan role during the 1995 elections was given the third job extension.

The national general secretary of the Samajwadi Party, Kapildeo Singh and another party leader, Badry Doza were also against the extension services to any government servant.

The leader of the opposition, Sushil Kumar Modi, in a fax message to the Prime Minister, H.D. Deve Gowda, had requested him not to grant any further extension to Basak since it would demoralise the state IAS cadre. In his letter to the Prime Minister, Modi had alleged that during Basak's tenure the law and order as well as administrative machinery had totally collapsed as several carnages had taken place.

During the regime of the present chief secretary several scams such as Animal Husbandry, Bitumen, Land and Fishery had taken place and the guilty persons were moving scot free.

Modi even alleged that since Basak was the batchmate of the CBI director the state government was contemplating to give him the third extension in order to influence the A.H. Scandal. He had requested the Centre to prevail upon the state as well as the Home ministry to stall the move to grant third extension to Basak.

Basak who was also the private secretary to the governor became the chief secretary of the state after the retirement of Arun Pathak, received the first extension on August 31, 1995. On the expiry of the term in February 1996 he was given the second extension with the concurrence of the Union Home minister. The third extension was granted to him for another six months on August 31, 1996.