Of Legal Quagmire and an Honest Bureaucrat

On august 16, 2016, the news of former coal secretary Hc Gupta, an accused in several coal scam cases, seeking to withdraw his personal bond to secure bail due to financial difficulties shook the entire bureaucracy. a week later, on august 27, he withdrew his petition seeking to take back his bail bond and agreed to “follow the normal legal procedure and practices”. observers opine that Gupta’s case is not just an incident of an “honest officer” finding himself unable to bear the huge cost of fighting litigation but it reflects “the deep-rooted malaise” in the indian administrative system which gives no protection to upright bureaucrats who are left all alone to fend for themselves for restoring their dignity and reputation. the incident, bureaucrats say, will demoralise officers to take any decision which will be detrimental to national interest. a Bureaucracy Today report.

- Soma Chakraborty

In 2012, indians woke up to the infamous coalgate scam centring on coal block allocations made between 2004 and 2009 by the then UPa Government to public sector enterprises and private entities and involving a mind-numbing amount of Rs 1.86 lakh crore. there were many accusations against several high-profile politicians, corporates and bureaucrats of having been involved in the scam.

Now four years down the line, though the politicians and the corporate honchos named in the coal scam have gone into oblivion, retired bureaucrat Hc Gupta – whose honesty every single civil servant vouches for – is finding him trapped in the legal quagmire, all penniless.

Though Gupta, a retired 1971-batch IAS officer of the UP cadre, when contacted by Bureaucracy Today refused to speak about the ordeal he is going through, his colleagues in the bureaucracy – both retired and in service – have come forward to his support and ensure that he does not fight a lonely battle. “since the matter is sub judice, it won’t be proper for me to speak to the media,” Gupta told this reporter during one of his court hearings.