quot;Overzealousquot; Biswas may be repatriated

NEW DELHI, NOV 28: The Central Bureau of Investigation CBI Joint Director, U N Biswas, and the CBI Superintendent of Police, V S K Kaumud...

NEW DELHI, NOV 28: The Central Bureau of Investigation CBI Joint Director, U N Biswas, and the CBI Superintendent of Police, V S K Kaumudi, may get away with a light departmental punishment for calling out the Army in Patna without authorisation prior to the arrest of former Bihar Chief Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav.

Orders for the repatriation of the two Indian Police Service officers to their State cadres have been cleared by the Department of Personnel DoP and the Ministry of Home Affairs MHA. However, final clearance by Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral is awaited.

The action against the officers follows the submission of the A P Dorai report which criticised Biswas and Kaumudi for their 8220;unprofessional conduct8221; of calling out the Army and recommended that the Government 8220;take any action it deems fit8221; against them. U N Biswas, an officer of the West Bengal cadre had been posted in Calcutta as CBI Joint Director East and was supervising investigations in the multi-crore fodder scam.

He is due to retire in about three years. Kaumudi, posted in Patna, belongs to the Andhra Pradesh cadre and is now likely to be repatriated to the state.Following Dorai8217;s recommendations, a departmental committee headed by DoP Secretary Arvind Verma was appointed. The committee is believed to have given a list of options which could be exercised against the officers. These included imposition of major penalties, imposition of minor penalties or departmental action like suspension, censuring or repatriation from the Centre to the respective states.

The list of options was then examined by the Ministry of Law. The law ministry held that the act of calling out the Army without proper authorisation could be called 8220;overzealous8221; on part of the CBI officers in Patna. However, no malafide or culpability could be deduced. The repatriation of the two officers was seen as a 8220;suitable8221; punishment.The designated CBI court yesterday extended the judicial remand of Laloo Yadav till December 11 in two conspiracy angle cases in the fodder scam.

Ritu Sarin

Ritu Sarin is Executive Editor (News and Investigations) at The Indian Express group. Her areas of specialisation include internal security, money laundering and corruption. Sarin is one of India’s most renowned reporters and has a career in journalism of over four decades. She is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) since 1999 and since early 2023, a member of its Board of Directors. She has also been a founder member of the ICIJ Network Committee (INC). She has, to begin with, alone, and later led teams which have worked on ICIJ’s Offshore Leaks, Swiss Leaks, the Pulitzer Prize winning Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Implant Files, Fincen Files, Pandora Papers, the Uber Files and Deforestation Inc. She has conducted investigative journalism workshops and addressed investigative journalism conferences with a specialisation on collaborative journalism in several countries. ... Read More