By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 10 Mar: Confusion continues over IFS officer Manoj Chandran, who had applied for voluntary retirement from the service of the Uttarakhand Forest Department several months ago. Commenting on the current status of the case, Forest Minister Subodh Uniyal today asserted that a final decision on voluntary retirement will be taken only after looking at the legal aspects of the matter.
Indian Forest Service officer Manoj Chandran has given a notice of voluntary retirement, but the state government has not yet taken any final decision on it. Manoj Chandran had given a notice till 28 February regarding voluntary retirement. However, the decision is still awaited.
Now, for the first time, Forest Minister Subodh Uniyal has clarified that the final decision will be taken only after looking at the legal aspects in this matter. Uniyal added that as far as the rule related to the 3-month notice period is concerned, it may not apply to persons who are under investigation in any case.
It may be recalled that IFS officer Manoj Chandran had given a notice of 5 months. Even after this, when no decision was taken, it was being believed that the voluntary retirement of Chandran has been accepted. Now the government is currently considering what can be done further as per the rules. It is believed that soon a decision can be taken by the government on this.
On the other hand, the report on the case in which Manoj Chandran is being investigated has been given to the government by the investigating officer. There is no final decision yet on how much the government agrees with this investigation report. The rules related to All India Service are also being looked into. Even the Chief Minister’s Office has been informed about the matter.
It may be recalled that Chandran has been accused of promoting and regularising services of several forest officials against the rules. While handling the responsibility of human resources in the forest department, he had regularised the services of 504 personnel. Apart from this, he had also approved promotions of several forest officials, some of them being promoted to the post of Forest Sub Inspector. Such large scale regularisation raised some eyebrows and then an inquiry was ordered. Some sources in the department however claim that Chandran has been an officer with high integrity and apart from this case, has had a clean service record.
