Uttarakhand: After taking on corruption in the All India Institutes of Medical Sciences, whistleblower and Indian Foreign Service officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi has decided to put an end to the 'VIP culture' in the Jim Corbett National Park.
In an official order released by Chaturvedi, Director of the Jim Corbett National Park has declared that it will not entertain references from VIPs requesting stay and safari facilities among others either for themselves or for their relatives and friends, instead, these requests would be reported to their higher authorities.
Chaturvedi, a Ramon Magsaysay Award winner, is known for his intolerance towards corruption and unfair practices.
The official order cites, "the Corbett administration receives a large number of communications, through explicit use/display of official position/state symbols, for arranging safari, stay, other private arrangements of various highly placed authorities, which is otherwise a purely personal activity and has nothing to do with discharge of any official duties of the authorities concerned."
"This is nothing but brazen abuse of official position for seeking favour for personal ends. Such practices also put stress on an already overburdened administration, primary duties of which are habitat management and protection works," the order reads further.
Rules framed by the Uttarakhand government regarding state guests allow very few constitutional functionaries like the president, prime minister, chief justice of India, Lok Sabha speaker, among others to avail such facilities.
"In future such requests are not to be taken cognizance of at all and the same has to be returned immediately, in original, to the office concerned and the matter has to be reported to the higher authorities of such offices for action against them, regarding such abuse of official positions," said Chaturvedi in the order.
He said the Right to Equality guaranteed under Article 14 of the Constitution, is one of the bedrocks of a democratic polity.
Chaturvedi was earlier posted as the Chief-Vigilance Officer of AIIMS, where he got caught in the cross-hairs of the Bharatiya Janta Party-led National Democratic Alliance government, over the investigation into several scams at India's premier hospital. He took action in 165 cases of corruption over a period of two and a half years.
Chaturvedi recently won a legal battle against the Prime Minister-headed Appointments Committee of Cabinet on the change of his cadre from Haryana to Uttarakhand. He got a favourable order from the Central Administrative Tribunal after the panel sent his long-standing plea back to square one instead of taking a decisive call on it as is required under service rules of officers.
His was first posted in Haryana's Kurukshetra, where he took on the contractors in the Saraswati Wildlife Sanctuary over deer hunting and filed an FIR against them.
In 2014, the then Health Secretary had honoured him with the 'Honest Officer' award.
The whistleblower has been transferred 12 times over the past five years.
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In 2009, he uncovered scams which had taken place in the forests of Jhajjar and Hissar.
He was also responsible for uncovering the corruption scandal involving the Jhajjar Herbal Park in Haryana between 2007-08. The scam involved several ministers.
