The whistleblower bureaucrat Sanjiv Chaturvedi is seeking deputation in the anti-corruption ombudsman Lokpal, citing his relentless fight against corruption.
The 2002 batch Indian Forest Service officer, who made headlines during his tenure as the Chief Vigilance Officer of AIIMS, Delhi, has written a letter to the Lokpal seeking deputation to serve in its investigation branch.
“I belong to a respectable family of freedom fighters and my entire career has been that of persistent struggle and resistance against corruption of high and mighty of ruling establishment, with unflinching commitment in the face of relentless persecution of all form,” he has said in his letter, written via the Uttarakhand government.
Chaturvedi at present serving as Conservator of Forest (Research) at Haldwani, Uttarakhand, won the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2015 for his fight against corruption. He highlighted in his letter some prominent cases investigated by him during his tenure as CVO of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi and when he was posted in Haryana, and the appreciation received by him from various Constitutional authorities.
During his tenure in Haryana from 2008-2014, four Presidential orders were passed in his favour.
In August 2015 his cadre was changed from Haryana to Uttarakhand on grounds of “extreme hardship” faced by him in the form of harassment for uncovering a large number of corruption cases.
The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) while directing the centre to change his cadre in 2015 had said, “We do hope and trust a situation may never arise where honesty is punished and corruption rewarded.”
During his tenure at AIIMS he had investigated around 200 corruption cases. Recently, the Uttarakhand High Court termed the attitude of the central government and AIIMS as “vindictive” for him and had imposed a cost of Rs. 25,000, which was not only upheld by the Supreme Court but also further enhanced to Rs. 50,000.
In his letter, he has further said that all the requirements for the said deputation are fulfilled regarding completion of a cooling off period of three years as on August 29, 2019, and that there is vacancy in Central Deputation Reserve in his cadre (ie Uttarakhand).
Regarding the present trend of anti-corruption investigations, he said that it is very rare that corruption cases are registered and followed against the ruling establishment.
“In this regard, I humbly submit that both during my Haryana cadre tenure and central deputation tenure, I worked fearlessly against corruption cases of persons close to/belonging to ruling elite, without yielding to relentless and ruthless persecution in any manner,” Chaturvedi said.