Nearly a year after she was booked on corruption charges, 2013-batch Haryana Civil Services (HCS) officer Meenakshi Dahiya is back in the government, this time as additional director (administration) in the agriculture and farmers welfare department. Chief Secretary Anurag Rastogi issued Dahiya’s posting orders on Friday. “Dahiya has been reinstated in service, and she was awaiting posting orders, which were issued today,” a government official said. It was on May 29, 2024, that an alleged bribery case came to light. Dahiya was posted as a joint secretary in the fisheries department at the time. Her name surfaced in that case, following which she was untraceable for nearly four months. During this period, she filed for anticipatory bail in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, but her plea was rejected. After this, she joined the investigation in the case but could not provide any satisfactory replies to the queries put forth by the investigating officials. In September 2024, the Haryana Anti-Corruption Bureau arrested Dahiya in the case. She is currently out on bail. According to the FIR registered in the case in May 2024, Dahiya’s then senior-scale stenographer Joginder Singh and peon Satinder Singh were arrested for demanding and accepting Rs 1 lakh bribe. The FIR was lodged after Rajan Khora, a district officer with the fisheries department, filed a complaint with the ACB. Khora was facing a chargesheet for alleged dereliction of duty. He alleged that Satinder demanded the bribe money through Joginder, at Dahiya’s behest, to get the charges against him dropped. The investigating officials analysed the accused’s phone call records and transcripts that allegedly indicated Dahiya’s involvement in the bribery case. The investigating officials also said that Satinder had gone to collect the bribe money on a scooter registered in Dahiya’s name.
