Bhubaneswar: Information received through an RTI application has revealed that several police officials in the state were transferred and got posted at different places according to recommendations made by politicians across party lines.
The politicians openly flouted Rule No 23 of Odisha Government Servants Conduct Rules, 1959, that clearly ruled out any outside influence regarding the matters related to transfer, appointment and promotion of public servants. The police department which denied giving the information later supplied it following the order of the State Information Commissioner.
The RTI activist had sought the information from the Home department regarding the transfers and postings from 2015 to 2016. Later, the Home department transferred the application to the Public Information Office of the Police DG Office at Cuttack. However, they first denied giving the details.
According to the RTI reply, the police department had received 81 letters of recommendation from various politicians of different parties for the transfer of IICs, DSPs, Additional DSPs, Additional SPs and OSAP battalion commanders from May 21, 2015 to December 15, 2016.
Out of these letters, five were sent by the leaders of non-BJD parties while BJD leaders had recommended the names of officers for 71 times. Apart from that, the Deputy Speaker of the Odisha Legislative Assembly, Sananda Marndi, had given seven letters of recommendation.
Interestingly, Tirtol MLA Rajashri Mallik had written to the DGP to post Nagendra Prasad Nayak, who was suspended in a 2012 Vigilance case, as the SDPO of Paradip after the end of the six-month suspension period.
Similarly, from 2015 to 2017, several ministers and leaders of BJD sent 57 recommendation letters to the DG’s office favouring the police officials in OSAP battalions. Out of that, ex-minister Arun Sahoo wrote around 11 letters to the DG office. The RTI reply also revealed that 32 ministers, including Bijayashree Routray, Prafulla Mallik and Pradeep Maharathy had written such letters to the DG office.
The politicians also presented interesting pleas in support of their letters like the one sent by Minister Badri Narayan Patra who requested the DG to post Maheswar Sethy, former DSP at the police headquarters, as the SDPO of Keonjhar citing the alarming law order situation in the district.