Haryana to chargesheet IAS officer Rani Nagar for not joining duty for months

A Haryana government officer told The Indian Express that the decision to initiate departmental action against her was taken nearly a month back when she did not join the duty despite being cautioned for the same. Rani could not be contacted but four days back, she had posted a “resignation letter” on Facebook.

In the letter dated May 7 and addressed to the President, she mentioned: “I…do hereby submit my resignation from the post of Indian Administrative Service with immediate effect. You are requested to kindly accept my…final resignation from the post of Indian Administrative Service with immediate effect today on May 7, 2022 at 10:13 am approximately.”

According to the letter, its copies have been sent to DoPT (Department of Personnel and Training) and Haryana Chief Secretary. The officials in Haryana government have not confirmed that they have received the latest resignation letter but added that “she keeps offering resignation and withdrawing the same”.

In another Facebook post, Rani Nagar (40) posted an email addressed to different authorities, including Haryana Chief Secretary, to refer to her “complaint” of April 1, 2022. The email reads as: “As per my best understanding….tests for medical conditions like schizophrenia and/or any other medico-legal test are being conducted upon myself since March 27, 2022 till date…I have never given any permission and/or authorisation to anyone for conducting any kind of brain-mapping, narco-analysis tests…”

In 2020 too, Rani Nagar had announced her resignation in a post on her Facebook page on May 4 and had immediately left Chandigarh for her hometown Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh. In that letter she had stated that the “reason for submitting this resignation is the personal safety on government duty”.

That time her resignation had become a major issue with opposition parties questioning if she was being victimised. The Haryana government then had refused to accept her resignation.

Earlier, in June 2018, Rani had accused an additional chief secretary-level bureaucrat (Haryana) of harassing her, a charge denied by the officer. Prior to that, in December 2017, when she was posted as the sub-divisional magistrate of Dabwali in Sirsa district, police had lodged a case of trespass against an unidentified person on her complaint.

In May 2020, Rani had alleged that she and her sister were assaulted in her native town Ghaziabad.