Sting CD: Tenure of IAS officer Mohd Shahid curtailed

Tribune NEwsService

Dehradun, July 27

In a sudden curtailment of inter-cadre deputation, the Central Government has ordered the transfer of former Personal Secretary to Chief Minister Harish Rawat, Mohammad Shahid, to the place of his immediate previous posting, after a sting video purportedly showing him negotiating a bribery deal went public.

The appointment committee of the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions of the Ministry of Personnel has issued the letter to Uttarakhand Chief Secretary N Ravishankar.

Confirming the development, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Om Prakash said the order was being complied with. The curtailment of the deputation of Mohammed Shahid is expected to make things tough for the Chief Minister, who is under fire from the Opposition BJP on the issue of flood relief scam and the sting CD exposure.

A Gujarat cadre IAS officer of 1998 batch, Shahid, has now been asked to report to the place of his immediate previous posting prior to his inter-cadre deputation. Shahid had come on deputation to Uttarakhand just a couple of months after Harish Rawat took over as the Chief Minister of the state in February 2014. He also served as the Personal Secretary to the Chief Minister when the latter was the Union Minister for Water Resources in the then UPA government. The official had left the state government red-faced when the BJP circulated a sting video CD last Wednesday purportedly showing him negotiating a bribery deal with a middleman for liquor licences. He was removed from his post on Saturday after he requested the state’s Chief Secretary to absolve him of the responsibilities pending an ongoing inquiry into the authenticity of the sting video.

Meanwhile, a BJP leader said: “The Congress government should not view this new development lightly, once the secretary goes back to New Delhi or back to his cadre state, he will be under the watch of the BJP, which is bound to dig more dirt on the Congress government.”

A probe being conducted by DGP BS Sidhu into the authenticity of the CD was yet to conclude.