Thaindian News

Lucknow, Oct 11 (IANS) The Mayawati government Tuesday slammed a woman Indian Administrative Service officer for issuing a statement against the state administration after she was suspended for violation of service rules.

Promila Shankar, an officer of the 1976 batch of the civil service, was charged with undertaking a series of private foreign trips without seeking permission of the government.

In her representation to the union government, she alleged that she was being victimised by the state government because she had refused to turn a blind eye to certain violations of the National Capital Region Plan 2021 in the proposed urbanisation along the Yamuna Expressway.

While Shankar had made a representation to the union government’s department of personnel, the state government has taken serious view of the fact that the contents of the representation appeared in a section of media here Tuesday.

“The officer committed serious violation of the service rules by undertaking private trips to Canada, Bangladesh, Sweden, South Africa and Sri Lanka between September 2010 and September 2011, without seeking the mandatory permission of the state government, for which disciplinary proceedings were initiated against her,” said a state government spokesman.

“The officer simply took casual leave and left the country, which is just not permitted by the same rules which she has cited in her representation to the centre,” the spokesman said.

“After all, when a senior officer of 1976 batch commits such violation, it sets a wrong precedent,” he added.

Shankar charged the Mayawati government with “unleashing a reign of terror on the officers who spoke their mind on files”.

Sending copies of her representation to union Cabinet Secretary Ajit Kumar Seth as well as to Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Pulok Chatterjee, she said: “It is the responsibility of the government of India to protect the morale of officers belonging to all-India services.”