BHUBANESWAR: Three months after they faced action by the Election Commission of India for gross misconduct, the Odisha government has begun proceedings against senior IPS officers DS Kutey and Ashish Kumar Singh.
In separate memorandums of charges, the Home department has asked Kutey and Singh to submit their statements within 30 days.
In May, Kutey, the then special secretary to the chief minister’s office was placed under suspension by EC for acts of misconduct. The 1997 batch IPS officer was suspended for interfering with the election process while Singh, a 2004 batch officer, was asked to appear before a special medical board since he was on leave on health grounds. Both are currently posted as officer on special duty (OSD) with the Home department.
As per the memorandum, Kutey face charges of unduly interfering with the conduct of general elections as he allegedly repeatedly contacted the additional chief electoral officer to withdraw approval to an advertisement by a political party to be published during the silence period. The additional CEO was the chairman of the state level media certification and monitoring committee.
In another instance, the memorandum said, additional DG ranked officer instructed the then Khurda collector to get a contesting candidate arrested on the day of the poll. As per the job profile of Kutey, he had no reason to interfere with the work of election-related officials during general elections, particularly when the model code of conduct was in force, read the Home department’s memorandum. In case of Singh, he has been charged with misrepresentation of facts.
In the memorandum, the Home department said Singh was transferred as IG central range to non-election related posts on ECI’s direction. Subsequently, he was posted as IG (CM’s security).
Singh submitted an application for one month leave from May 4 and was allowed to avail the same. On May 28, the ECI had asked him to present himself for detailed medical examination by a special medical board constituted by the executive director of AIIMS-Bhubaneswar.
The board later found Singh to be physically and mentally fit and the leave he availed was misrepresentation of facts, read the memorandum.