NEW DELHI:It’s official now. India’s premier defence research agency DRDO will not tolerate whistleblowers. A senior DRDO scientist, who notified the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) about an ongoing corruption probe by the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) against another senior scientist nominated for a coveted award, has been served a show-cause notice.
While serving the notice to the senior scientist of its Nasik laboratory, the DRDO headquarters cited strict compliance of Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha’s instructions issued last month that writing directly to the PMO, in violation of a prescribed channel of communication, has to be viewed seriously and is liable for appropriate disciplinary action.
The senior scientist (name withheld) had written to Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on September 19 with a copy to the PMO and Director General of DRDO, requesting to put on hold the Scientist of the Year Award 2014 to a senior scientist of Pune-based Research & Development Establishment (Engineers), against whom the CVC is investigating a corruption case.
In his complaint, the whistleblower scientist has written that “if the DRDO management encourages such officials, the morale of honest scientists/officers will certainly go down and in future no one will dare to raise their voice against these corrupt officials of DRDO.”
The alleged corrupt scientist was in the list of 14 scientists, who received ‘Scientist of the Year Award’ from Parrikar on September 23. But instead of taking cognizance of his complaint, the DRDO headquarters decided to suppress his voice against corruption.
“Scientist E is hereby asked to explain within seven days, why disciplinary action should not be taken against him for violating prescribed channel of representation as it shall rightly be treated as an unbecoming conduct attracting provisions of CCS (conduct) rules,” the show-cause, served on September 24, stated.
Citing a Cabinet Secretary note on official communication channel, DRDO headquarters stated in its notice that “Comprehensive instructions have been issued by DRDO HQ on August 20 following Cabinet Secretary’s letter. Strict compliance with prescribed channel of representation and violation thereby shall be viewed seriously.”
Following the August 17 note from the Cabinet Secretary, the DRDO headquarters issued detailed instructions to all its laboratories for strict compliance regarding representations being sent directly to higher authorities bypassing the prescribed channel of communication.
But para 11 of the guidelines titled ‘representation from government servants on service matter and other issues’ issued by DRDO’s Director of Personnel Dr Hina A Gokhale on August 20 clearly stated that “while normally a government servant is required to address communication through proper channel, there is no objection in entertaining a direct complaint or communication from him/her giving information about corruption or other kinds of malpractices,” DRDO guidelines say, a copy of which was accessed by The Sunday Standard.
Interestingly, the same whistleblower scientist had earlier exposed an absurd venture of a Pune laboratory that developed a chariot for a religious event and he had moved the Bombay High Court and even the CVC in this regard. DRDO developed this hi-tech chariot and ‘donated’ it to Alandi Temple in Pune. The scientist had to pay for raising his voice at that time as well. The DRDO not only removed him from ongoing projects, but also transferred him out from the centre.
When contacted, DRDO officials refused to comment on the matter.