BHUBANESWAR:Central Reserve Police Force Director General Prakash Mishra, it seems, was persecuted by the Odisha government for being honest and upright, and he couldn’t get the top Central postings he was eligible for. A Vigilance Department probe instituted against him by the Naveen Patnaik government scuttled his chances of securing the post of CBI Director in September last year.
Now that he has been vindicated by the Orissa High Court and there are so many positions available for the 1977-batch Odisha cadre IPS officer, his adversaries are still trying to block these. The recent high court judgment, quashing the Vigilance Department inquiry against the former State Director General of Police, is a severe indictment of the Patnaik government over blatant misuse of official machinery to serve its own interests.
The court has minced no words in stating that the inquiry was conducted with a malafide predetermined agenda to implicate Mishra. The entire action smacks of arbitrary and malafide exercise of power with the oblique motive to harass Mishra and damage his reputation, Justice S C Parija remarked; the intent being to damage his reputation when he was a front-runner for the post of Director, CBI.
Mishra, who was handpicked by Patnaik to head the state police in 2012, had a bitter fallout with the government during the 2014 poll, purportedly for stalling misuse of police and official machinery by the ruling party. His role in seizing vehicles loaded with cash during the campaigning is believed to have triggered the acrimony between him and Patnaik. Soon after the polls, he was removed as DGP and posted head of Odisha State Road Transport Corporation.
Interestingly, the same government—which had earlier in 2013 recommended Mishra for Central deputation—developed cold feet when he was tipped for the post of the CBI chief after the NDA government swept to power at the Centre. It withdrew the recommendation citing shortage of police while shifting Mishra to the transport PSU. But he was subsequently allowed to move to the Centre and joined as Special Secretary (Internal Security) after Home Minister Rajnath Singh intervened.
In September 2014, the Vigilance Department inquiry was ordered on allegations that Mishra, as the CMD of Odisha State Police Housing and Welfare Corporation from 2006 to 2009, had allowed 100 per cent advance payment to steel and cement suppliers without ensuring delivery, causing loss to the organisation.
The move was seen as an attempt to prevent Mishra from being selected for the CBI as the government was under immense pressure from the thousands of crore of rupees mining scam, chit fund scam, etc. Mishra challenged the FIR, terming it malafide and said that he acted as per powers vested on him as CMD.
In its 51-page judgment, Justice Parija has been scathing in his observations on the conduct of the government and the Vigilance Department. The department admitted that such practice of making advance payment was in vogue much before Mishra joined the corporation and continued even after his tenure ended, and thus no dishonest intention can be attributed against him, the judge stated.
“It is not very uncommon in our country that honest and upright public servants with unimpeachable integrity and impeccable track record are often hounded by the ruling political establishment for extraneous considerations... the conduct of the Director Vigilance clearly shows that he was more concerned about exhibiting his loyalty to the ruling establishment, akin to the old British adage of more loyal than the king,” he observed.