By Law Kumar Mishra
Former President Ram Nath Kovind, who in 2017 was resting at the Raj Bhavan in Patna, was astonished when on 26 February his ADC informed him that nearly fifty IAS officers were sitting on a dharna at the Raj Bhavan gate, demanding to meet His Excellency immediately.
Kovind, who was to become the President two months later, agreed to meet them. Members of the IAS Association handed him a memorandum, demanding the immediate release of senior IAS officer Sudhir Kumar, then Chairman of the Bihar Staff Selection Commission, Sudhir Kumar had been arrested by the state’s Special Investigation Team, led by Rakesh Dubey, from his ancestral home in Hazaribagh. He was accused of large-scale irregularities in recruitment and corruption worth several crores. Four of his family members were also arrested along with him.
After meeting the Governor, the officers formed a human chain outside the Raj Bhavan. Taking an openly confrontational path, they even issued a written threat: “Until Sudhir Kumar is released, no officer will comply with any verbal instructions of the Chief Minister or other ministers. We will also not act upon any verbal orders from the Governor.”
The officers also met Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, submitting to him a resolution passed by their Association, warning that his oral instructions would no longer be followed. This was the first time that senior officers of the Indian Administrative Service—including 28 District Magistrates—publicly behaved like agitating workers.
The Governor asked the Chief Minister under whose authority the District Magistrates and other officials had abandoned their headquarters to assemble in Patna, and expressed dismay that even Divisional Commissioners were part of the agitation. The matter echoed in the Bihar Legislative Assembly the next day during the Budget Session.
Nitish Kumar announced that the officers’ demands would not be accepted. He further stated that show-cause notices had been served to the protesting officers, requiring replies within three days. A PIL was also filed in the Patna High Court, which asked the government how district-level officers had staged a dharna outside the Raj Bhavan without permission. The government declared that “landmark exemplary action” would be taken against the officers.
Despite the agitation, Sudhir Kumar was not released.
There was a time when these very IAS officers gladly obeyed every oral order of Nitish Kumar. For instance, when Gopal Krishna Gandhi was acting Governor of Bihar, he was traveling from Kolkata via Patna to Motihari. During that period, Nitish Kumar, Sushil Kumar Modi, and others were to be nominated to the Bihar Legislative Council under the Governor’s quota.
Nitish Kumar summoned the Governor’s Principal Secretary, R J M Pillai, handed him a file, and instructed that the Governor’s signature must be taken. As the Governor was about to transfer from airplane to helicopter, Pillai informed him: “Sir, this is as per the Chief Minister’s orders.”
On another occasion, around midnight, Nitish Kumar sent his Principal Secretary Chanchal Kumar to the Raj Bhavan with instructions to secure the Governor’s signature on the same date itself. Governor Devanand Konwar had already retired to bed. A Raj Bhavan officer was woken up with orders to obtain the Governor’s signature. The Governor, awakened with difficulty, inquired about the urgency. The matter was the appointment of Ram Balak Mahato as the new Advocate General/legal advisor. The Governor asked why it was necessary to act so late at night.
The Principal Secretary replied: “It is essential to issue the order immediately, because the BJP (at that time a coalition partner with JDU) is also staking claim with a different name for Advocate General.”
(The author is a senior journalist based at Patna in Bihar)
