Haryana govt rebuts charges on Khemka transfer

Says his allegations factually incorrect, orders probe into these

The Haryana government on Tuesday defended itself on the abrupt transfer of senior IAS officer Ashok Khemka, right after he’d begun to probe some controversial land deals linked to the son-in-law of the Congress party president.

Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said he’d told Chief Secretary P K Chaudhary to examine the charges made by Khemka on the said deals, that were reported in a section of the media. The probe is to be completed within a month. The inquiry committee will look into the legality of actions taken by the officials concerned, including acts of omissions and commission, if any.

 

Also, the Haryana government separately issued an explanation on Khemka’s transfer as director, consolidation, and special collector in the land records wing. It said the shift was to comply with the October 1 directions of the high court here, from Khemka’s own request to relieve him of the charge of special collector, traditionally held by the director, consolidation. The HC, it said, had wanted a decision as early as possible to either give charge to some officer who could exercise the powers of a special collector or to appoint someone. There were no other grounds for the transfer, it said.

Khemka was transferred out and made managing director, Haryana Seeds Development Corporation. The government said he’d tried to link this transfer to certain actions he’d taken on subsequent dates without any basis. The transfer was neither out of any malice nor done abruptly but arose from the mentioned administrative exigency, it said.

On Khemka’s order cancelling a mutation deed related to the controversy mentioned earlier, one done by a tehsildar, the government said a tehsildar was authorised to register documents, having been conferred the power of a consolidation officer across the state by a notification dated January 11, 2008.