By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 22 Apr: The Dhami Government has granted permission for prosecution of senior Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer Kishan Chand. However, before the actual initiation of the action, the state government will also have to seek permission from the Centre, as the IFS is an All India Service.
Kishan Chand has been in the news for the past several years for the wrong reasons. Continuous complaints against him led to an inquiry regarding assets disproportionate to his known sources of income. Consequently, a vigilance inquiry was also ordered against him.
Following the completion of the inquiry, the Vigilance Department sought the state government’s permission to prosecute him. A charge sheet has been prepared and filed against him. However, to begin his prosecution, permission from the state government as well as the Centre is mandatory. While the state government has already granted permission, according to sources, the Centre’s permission is being sought. The process for this is already underway, according to the sources. Once the permission is obtained, the Vigilance Department is expected to file the chargesheet in the relevant court.
Sources claim that the Vigilance Department has in its inquiry found assets worth more than Rs 33 crores in Kishan Chand’s name or in the name of his immediate family members. The properties personally in Kishan Chand’s name amount to Rs 7 crores, while most are in the name of his immediate family members. He is also reported to own a stone crusher unit called Abhishek Stone Crusher in Bhogpur, Dehradun, in his son’s name. He is also stated to own a school, named Brij International Public School in Piran Kaliyar, Roorkee, in his wife’s name. In order to run the school, a trust was created in the name of his wife, and he took a huge loan from the trust to buy the school property. He has not returned the loan amount at all.
The vigilance inquiry revealed that large amounts of money were deposited by many rich and influential people in this trust. Also, as per the Vigilance chargesheet, while being DFO, Haridwar, he promised jobs to many rural people in Lansdowne Division in the Forest Department and got their lands transferred to his or his family members’ names in lieu of the jobs. He allegedly also purchased a house for over Rs 2.40 crores in Vasant Vihar Colony in Dehradun. For this, he again obtained a loan of Rs 60 lakhs from the school trust, while the remaining amount of Rs 1.80 crores was taken from the bank account of his wife. Further inquiry revealed that this amount had been deposited into his wife’s account by several people just one day before the purchase of the said house in Dehradun. The Vigilance Chargesheet mentions that Kishan Chand has been found to be possessing properties and funds 375 times more than his known sources of income.
Sources report that Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami gave the green signal to prosecute Kishan Chand earlier this week. Incidentally, there are not many examples of strict prosecution of All India Services officials on cases of corruption in the twenty-two year history of Uttarakhand even though there have been many senior IAS and IPS officers who have been in news for alleged corruption.
