Haryana’s Most Transferred Officer Ashok Khemka Promoted
CHANDIGRAH: Ashok Khemka, the Haryana bureaucrat who was repeatedly transferred and also investigated after he cancelled a controversial land deal involving Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra, has been promoted.
Mr Khemka, 50, has been elevated to principal secretary. But the government says Mr Khemka’s promotion may be affected by the outcome of a corruption inquiry ordered against him by the previous Congress government in 2013.
In November, the BJP-led government overturned its predecessor’s orders and dropped a charge-sheet for “professional misconduct” filed against him.
Mr Khemka has alleged that he was persecuted by the Congress government after he cancelled the sale of 3.5 acres of land in Gurgaon near Delhi by Mr Vadra’s company to real estate giant DLF for Rs. 58 crore in 2012.
An auditor’s report had said the Congress bent rules to enable windfall gains for Mr Vadra’s company. The report was ignored by the Bhupinder Hooda-led government, which set up its own inquiry and then charge-sheeted Mr Khemka for “causing damage to Mr Vadra’s reputation” and “illegally” cancelling the deal.
The BJP, which took power in Haryana in October 2014, came out in Mr Khemka’s support while targeting Mr Vadra and the Congress.In the three years since the case emerged, Mr Khemka became one of the state’s most transferred officers.
When transfer number 45 came in April, this time in the BJP regime, Mr Khemka tweeted that the moment was “truly painful” for him. Mr Khemka was then removed as Transport Commissioner and shifted to the low profile Archaeology and Museums Department, the same department to which the previous government had moved him.
