ICAR official claims he was victimised

By Nirnimesh Kumar

NEW DELHI, APRIL 22. An Assistant Director-General (ADG) of the Indian Council for Agriculture Research (ICAR) has accused the Council of victimising him for ``exposing corruptions'' in it. Dr. Sadachari Singh Tomar, ADG, Computer Information, in a statement has alleged that he was demoted two ranks and sent to CIAE, Bhopal, to a lower post on the basis of alleged adverse remarks in his confidential report (CR).

However, the tenure of a government employee could not be terminated on the basis of his CR, Dr. Tomar said, adding that he had knocked on the door of the Prime Minister and the President for justice. But a Deputy Director-General of the ICAR, on the condition of anonymity, said that Dr. Tomar had been shirking responsibility and indulging in making false accusations against ICAR officials over the years.

According to him, it was provided in the `Service Rules' that the tenure of an employee could be terminated on the basis of adverse remarks in his CR, and the ICAR had done nothing wrong in terminating Dr. Tomar's tenure. However, Dr. Tomar said that the CR, on the basis of which his tenure was terminated, was still an issue of inquiry by a committee constituted by the Union Agriculture Minister, Mr. Nitish Kumar, on his representation to alleging that his CR had been deliberately spoilt.

Dr. Tomar alleged that the ICAR top brass had taken umbrage to his raising objections to a proposal to purchase computer items worth Rs. 35 crores. He said that despite his objections as member of the Tender Opening Committee and Member Secretary, Bid Finanlisation Committee, that the purchase should not be made without benchmarking, computer hardware was bought from a multi- national company.

A committee was set up to probe Dr. Tomar's allegations and it found the ICAR Director-General, Dr. R.S. Paroda, and 14 other officials guilty of extending undue favour to the computer manufacturing company which had not fulfilled the conditions for supply of the computers, he claimed.

Along with Dr. Tomar, four other officials were also shifted out of the capital and two of them were demoted, the statement said. This is not the first time that Dr. Tomar has been victimised for washing dirty linen in public. When he was Director of the Madhya Pradesh Council of Science and Technology, he had exposed a scam in which about Rs. 7 crores, meant for a project, had been swindled. He filed a complaint against five officials in the State Lok Ayukta, which, on investigation, found the charges correct.

Similarly, as Director, Biogas, Madhya Pradesh, he had detected a fraud of Rs. 25 crores in the allotment of biogas plants in 1985- 90. Later, a Legislative Committee found his complaint correct, his statement said.

Ironically, the Union Agriculture Minister, the statement said, in reply to a starred question described Dr. Tomar as ``highly unreliable, a liar, indisciplined and a shirker who believed in falsifying accounts, misrepresenting facts and disobeying his superiors, and thereby, unfit for the job.''

The Minister's reply was a verbatim quote from a CR of Dr. Tomar when he was Director, Madhya Pradesh Council of Science and Technology. The remarks contained in his CR were later withdrawn and the departmental inquiry was dropped following an order by the Jabalpur Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, the statement claimed.

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