RAIPUR: Here’s a forethought for the state government employees for what evidently seems essential for them to know: If you fail to recognise or dare to seek a proof of identity from senior most officer or the top bureaucrat of the state, you will not be spared.
A town inspector (TI) posted in Darri thana of Korba district of Chhattisgarh Raghunandan Prasad Sharma apparently paid the price for “doing his job on security" with responsibility during the visit of the chief minister Bhupesh Baghel. He was assigned the duty at the public meeting at Kerrajharia village of Pali block where the CM was to address the people and was engaged with verifying the identity of the people reaching the venue.
Sharma couldn’t recognise the chief secretary Sunil Kujur and asked his identity card. However after the CS introduced himself the police officer was quick to apologise but that perhaps was not enough to pacify an apparent annoyance of the chief secretary, who shared his grievance about the incident with the inspector general of police.
Sharma was immediately suspended by the Korba superintendent of police Jitendra Singh Meena following the complaint against him.
Interestingly, the incident which occurred in the Congress-ruled state, shocked the Congress Rajya Sabha member Vivek Tankha, a renowned lawyer. He tweeted telling the state chief secretary that it's the duty of policemen to check IDs of each person entering the high-security zone as Chhattisgarh is a highly-sensitive state and the CM’s security happens to be Z+ category. “Sorry chief secretary u are wrong. U don’t suspend/transfer someone for doing his duty”, Tankha affirmed in his tweet.
“We learnt about the incident (on police officer inquiring the CS regarding his identity) so the TI has been suspended. The preliminary inquiry on the complaint would be conducted by the Deputy superintendent of police rank officer to exactly know what and how it happened”, the Korba SP Meena told the Express.
Sunil Kujur, a 1986-batch IAS officer is the first Chhattisgarh chief secretary from scheduled tribe community. He replaced Ajay Singh (1983-batch IAS) in January 2019.