The Uttar Pradesh government on Thursday granted the Anti-Corruption Organisation permission to prosecute 12 senior IPS officers in connection with the state’s much-publicised police recruitment scam.The officers include Daljit Singh Choudhari, Officer on Special Duty to Minister of State for Home Shri Prakash Jaiswal. A DIG-rank officer, Choudhari was chairman of the two boards which selected constables in Kanpur and Etawah.In all, the case involves 25 IPS officers who headed 51 recruitment boards that the then chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav had constituted to recruit constables in different units of the UP police force, including the Provincial Armed Constabulary and the wireless unit in 2005-06.Besides Choudhari, the other IPS officers are B B Bakshi, Akhilesh Mehrotra, Ramendra Vikram Singh, B S Tripathi, S K Mathur, Chavinath Singh, Sunil Kumar Gupta, R N Yadav, Shailendra Pratap Singh, Malkhan Singh Yadav and B K Agrawal. They headed 24 recruitment boards. The ACO had sought permission to prosecute these officers under Sections 467, 468, 471 and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code. The state Government’s permission covers these charges. The state Government has also written a letter to the Centre, requesting it to give sanction to prosecute the officers under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act. Under law, officers of all-India services can be prosecuted under the Prevention of Corruption Act only after the Centre’s permission.Soon after the formation of the BSP Government last year, Chief Minister Mayawati had constituted a high-level committee, headed by ADG S K Mishra, to probe the allegations of irregularities in the recruitment of about 18,000 constables. The Mishra committee found evidence of large-scale irregularities, prompting the state Government not only to suspend 25 IPS officers, but also annul the appointments. Later the government revoked the officers’ suspension, but asked the ACO to formally investigate the matter.
