Govt caught off guard, minister’s office empty

On the fourth floor of Mantralaya, the office of the Transport Minister, Port, Welfare of Nomadic Denotified Tribes and OBC, Swarupsinh Naik, is locked and the corridor deserted, except for his peon.

On the fourth floor of Mantralaya, the office of the Transport Minister, Port, Welfare of Nomadic Denotified Tribes and OBC, Swarupsinh Naik, is locked and the corridor deserted, except for his peon. Asked about the minister, he said: “I don’t know where saheb has gone, you can come tomorrow”.

Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, who abruptly cancelled his regular media briefing after the day’s Cabinet meeting, looked distraught. Would he demand Naik’s resignation? “I’m waiting for the court order,” he said.

Asked whether he was aware of Naik and ex-forest secretary Ashok Khot’s whereabouts, Deshmukh said: }I’ll find out.” But chief secretary D K Shankaran was forthright.

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Clearly, the import of Supreme Court’s unprecedented order was sinking in. “Imprisonment awarded by the Supreme Court is grave. It’s serious, because it’s a criminal case and the three-judge bench was presided over by Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal.”

Like everyone else who matter in the state government machinery, he too was waiting for a copy of the SC’s order. “Since this is the first such case in the history of Maharashtra, where a minister and senior IAS officer has been awarded imprisonment, we will be able to give you details only by tomorrow afternoon,” he said.

But according to service rules, additional chief secretary Ashok Khot, who is about to retire, will be suspended the moment he spends 48 hours in jail. “And there’s a departmental inquiry that’s also in progress,” Shankaran said.

Nandanvan, the Malabar Hill bungalow of Naik, was all quiet as expected. Except for a few journalists, no one was there. A leader from Dhule-Nandurbar’s tribal areas, Naik has always made it to the state ministry—his close ties with the Gandhi family an added advantage.

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