“CBI Recently had raided Choudhary’s official residence and other places”
Abhisek Ghai
In a major development two IAS officer including senior most Naveen Kumar Choudhary has been shifted to Mizoram and M Raju has been shifted to Arunachal Pradesh by the Union Home Ministry, surprising one and all.
Naveen Choudhry was very close to then Finance Minister of J&K Government Haseen A Drabu. But after August 2019 when the Central Government scrapped down special status of J&K under Article 370, a case against Choudhary was sent to the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) by the first Lieutenant Governor JK UT, GC Murmu.
The Murmu administration had recovered Rs 39.69 lakh from Choudhary he allegedly took from an organisation and recommended a probe into his alleged illegal monetary benefits. It is pertinent to mention that a month back CBI raided official residence of Naveen Kumar Choudhary, and recently he was posted as ACS Health and medical education department.
Meanwhile, within days after the Jammu and Kashmir government approached the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe the bribe allegation of former Governor Satya Pal Malik, India’s premier investigative agency on April 21 conducted searches at 14 lo-cations, across the country, in connection with the charges.
The CBI has registered two cases in the matter. The agency has booked Anil Ambani’s Reliance General Insurance Company and officials of Chenab Valley Power Projects Pvt Ltd (CVPPPL), among others, in the two cases.CBI conducted raids at the residences of senior IAS officer of Jammu and Kashmir Navin Choudhary, former officers of Chenab Valley Projects Construction Limited and a construction company in Jammu, New Delhi, Bihar, and Mumbai. Naveen Choudhary is presently serving as Principal Secretary of the Health and Medical Education Department of Jammu and Kashmir.Raids were conducted in Jammu, Srinagar, Delhi, Mumbai, Noida, Trivandrum (Kerala), and Darbhanga (Bihar) at the premises of the accused including private companies, then Chairman, then MD, then Directors of CVPPPL.
It has been learnt that there were also complaints against M Raju. Both these officers have active touts, who runs transfer industry and other ‘businesses of these officers. A recently promoted Executive Engineer of PHE, now Jal Shakti from Chief Office Jammu has reportedly very close relation with the outgoing Commissioner Secretary M Raju. The Executive Engineer Jal Shakti, is also under ACB’s radar for his disproportionate assets. The ACB had initiated property assessment against M Raju’s trusted lieutenant. Recently the Chief Secretary J&K Dr Arun Kumar Mehta has reportedly snubbed M Raju for his poor performance, sources said.
The people of JK UT are very happy with decision of Ministry of Home Affairs. The people also expect removal of some other senior IAS officers, who are involved in money minting and brining bad name for the LG administration. At least two to three senior IAS officers deserve to be expelled out of J&K, these officers are promoting corruption culture and have accumulated huge assets, everybody is aware of their wrong doing, but nobody dare these people holding top positions in J&K’s bureaucracy.
