THE MYSTERY file pertaining to regularisation of services of 33 daily wagers in Department of Forests, that vanished from Punjab Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) in April, has turned murkier with IFS officer accused of taking away the file alleging that his colleague was behind the disappearance. In his reply to a notice issued by the Chief Minister’s Office, Chief Conservator of Forests (Hills), Punjab, Harsh Kumar Sharma has said that behind the missing file was his colleague, Conservator of Forests (Research) T K Bahera, who is currently posted in Hoshiarpur. The government has since reconstructed the file. The CMO had issued a notice to Sharma after an inquiry by a SP Balwant Kaur had stated that Sharma had gone to Secretary to Chief Minister, Amrit Kaur Gill’s office on April 12 before she reached office. He had stayed inside for three minutes and had left as the pile of papers he was holding had turned thicker. She had stated that Sharma may have taken the file. The police officer had conducted an inquiry following orders of the CM as the file had gone missing from the highly fortified CMO in the Punjab Secretariat. In his reply to the CMO, Sharma has attached an affidavit of a staffer of Forest Department, posted in Hoshiarpur. Sharma has stated that, “It has been revealed through the affidavit that such a file was procured by the then driver Gurmel Singh of research circle, department of forests, Hoshiarpur.” Enclosing the affidavit of Deepak Singh, who was working in research circle, Hoshiarpur, for collection of data of the tress, Sharma has stated that, “As per the affidavit, Gurmel Singh met him in Sector 82 Gurdwara between April 9 to 12 and had shown him the concerned file. According to affidavit Gurmel Singh had collected the file from main Civil Secretariat and was to deliver it to T K Bahera, IFS.” Sharma has further stated that the contents in the missing file have been quoted verbatim by Bahera in a Letter Patent Appeal (LPA) filed by him in the High Court in an earlier case against Sharma. “In the LPA, T K Bahera is definitely raising allegations against me in the High Court on June 28, 2018. He is quoting from the reference ofgovernment file. Even though he is not the disciplinary authority of IFS officers yet he is terming my actions as illegal that too in the court of law. That shows either someone from the government secretariat sent this file to T K Bahera or he had illegal access to it.” “Now the file has been reconstructed. I have been chargesheeted on September 26 and I have even got the stay against it from CAT bench, Chandigarh. But fact remains that the said file in LPA 998 of 2018 the allegations have been reproduced against me,” Sharma has added. Deepak Singh, when contacted by The Indian Express confirmed that he had met Gurmel Singh and seen the file. He was one of the 33 daily wagers whose services were regularised by Harsh Kumar Sharma. Gurmel Singh could not be contacted. Deepak Singh said he had lost his phone number. Bahera said he was not authorised to speak on the issue and hence he would not comment. The CMO had found the file missing on April 12 when Harsh Kumar was called for an inquiry marked against him for regularising services of 33 daily wagers of forest department on March 16, 2017, the day Amarinder Singh had sworn in as Chief Minister. The file was pertaining to the case. The government had stated that Sharma showed “unnecessary haste” in regularising the services of these daily wagers. He signed the file on March 16, when the new government formally took over. The regularisation was done under The Punjab Ad hoc, Contractual, Daily Wage, Temporary, Work Charged and Outsourced Employees’ Welfare Bill, 2016, passed by former SAD-BJP government in a special session of Vidhan Sabha on December 20, 2016. Just a few days before Sharma signed the regularisation orders, Punjab’s Advocate General had written to all the departments not to regularise the employees as the Act was challenged by a Ludhiana-based resident Ankita Gupta in the High Court, on the plea that former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal’s government had passed the Bill with an eye on the Assembly elections. Sharma has been claiming that his orders were in compliance with the Act that was already notified in December 2016. Talking to Indian Express on Thursday Sharma said, “I am also going to complain to the Chandigarh police about this theft.”
