The cost of transfers

Ashok Khemka too needs to be treated justly

The Haryana government in October 2012 said it had set up an "independent" committee to investigate the reports of illegality and bending of regulations in a land deal involving the state's Department of Town and Country Planning, the real estate behemoth DLF, and Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of Congress President Sonia Gandhi. Those reports had alleged that Mr Vadra had made windfall profits by acquiring land in Haryana, having the land use permission changed, and selling it to DLF for development. Haryana's director general of land records, Ashok Khemka, had repeatedly complained that "thousands of acres" of panchayat land was being mutated in violation of regulations and sold to developers. Beneficiaries of this windfall gain included several well-connected individuals, he said - including Mr Vadra, whose deal he cancelled just before he was transferred to the Haryana Seeds Development Corporation. Yet the Haryana government's report, written by four deputy commissioners, reportedly found no wrongdoing or undervaluation; indeed, the panel restricted its focus only to the Vadra-DLF deal, ignoring all of Mr Khemka's other allegations.

Reports of Mr Khemka's submission to the inquiry panel have now begun to emerge. Among other things, it seems Mr Vadra claimed to be the owner of the land - having bought it from a politically connected Haryana land company - even though his payment for it was not reflected on his books. This reflects very poorly on Mr Vadra's business methods, but is not necessarily a smoking gun of state wrongdoing. But it also appears that Mr Vadra requested a land use change from the Haryana government after he had filed paperwork stating that his company had transferred possession of the land. This warranted further investigation of the Haryana government, had the inquiry proceeded in good faith. Indeed, it is past time for this entire approach to changing land use in Haryana to be altered. It has apparently become a method by which politically connected firms in Haryana essentially take over panchayat land, sell it to influential individuals - of which Mr Vadra is just one among hundreds - and allow them to make windfall profits when they sell it to real estate developers, all at the cost of local panchayats. Mr Khemka deserves credit for blowing the whistle on this scam.

Instead, however, Mr Khemka was transferred - and was transferred yet again a few months ago, to the Haryana Archives, the 40th transfer in his career. The Congress party's Haryana government isn't just keeping open the loophole that he revealed, but is also apparently penalising a whistle-blower. Sonia Gandhi took the step of writing to the prime minister last week to ask that another transferred IAS whistle-blower, Durga Shakti Nagpal, be treated justly. Yet such concern is notably absent when it comes to Mr Khemka. Such blatant hypocrisy is the unfortunate hallmark of a polity that has begun to accept arbitrary transfers of officials as a matter of course. In spite of various submissions by state governments to the courts stating that they would attempt to ensure at least a two-year tenure for bureaucrats in a posting, the average tenure continues to be under five months, and subject to much political interference. This adversely impacts state efficiency, as well as transparency and independence. Institutional fixes for this have become necessary: perhaps ensuring that any transfers after a particularly short tenure are automatically examined by an independent authority.