The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), the controlling authority of the officers of Indian Administrative Service (IAS), has been sitting on the sanction sought by different state governments to prosecute two officers, for more than 18 months in one case and eight months in another.

This has been stated by DoPT while replying to an RTI query filed by this correspondent. The RTI application asked the department to share information regarding the names and designations of IAS officers against whom the sanction to prosecute has been sought by state governments and the Central Bureau of Investigation and is pending since May 2014.

In its reply, the DoPT said it deals with the proposal of sanction for prosecution against IAS officers only under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, and under that, the proposal to prosecute was pending against A. Subbiah, who is a West Bengal-cadre officer of the 1992 batch, and Sujit Gulati, who is a 1985-batch officer from the Gujarat cadre.

While the sanction to prosecute Subbiah was received by the DoPT way back in 5 May 2017, that against Gulati was received by the department in March 2018.

Subbiah is presently posted in West Bengal as the principal secretary of Paschimanchal Unnayan Affairs Department as well as the managing director and vice-chairman of West Bengal Essential Commodities Supplies Corporation.

Gulati is presently serving as the managing director of Gujarat State Fertilizers and Chemicals Ltd, Vadodara, and was empanelled in the rank of additional secretary in December 2015. As per an RTI query filed in 2012, he was the richest IAS officer of the state, having assets worth more than Rs 5 crore and earning Rs 20 lakh per year from other sources.

The case against Subbiah was filed by the Anti-Corruption Bureau, Chennai, in 2012 and is related to him allegedly getting a bribe of Rs 8 crore when he was the chairman of V.O. Chidambaranar Port, formerly Tuticorin port, which is one of the 12 major ports and fourth-largest container terminal in India.

The case against Gulati relates to an FIR filed by the Economic Offences Wing in 2014 when he was a director in the Ministry of Coal.

According to a retired IAS officer, DoPT sitting on such cases is not a new phenomenon. “It is a modus operandi to oblige bureaucrats and keep them under ‘control’. In these two cases (Subbiah and Gulati), the sanction permission has been pending for months, which shows that DoPT is not keen on matters proceeding,” he added.