Madhya Pradesh: IAS officer trains gun on govt again over ‘premature’ transfers

Madhya Pradesh IAS officer Lokesh Kumar Jangid, who was in the eye of a storm recently, has trained his guns at the state government again. Jangid had earlier levelled allegations of corruption against a senior officer on a social media group, which got leaked.

Jangid, a 2014-batch officer currently posted as the additional mission director of the Rajya Shiksha Kendra, posted a string of tweets on Monday evening to say that the Civil Services Board (CSB) of Madhya Pradesh met every fourth day in the year 2020 to approve transfers of IAS officers before completion of minimum tenure (by them).

Jangid himself has been transferred nine times in the duration of 4.5 years in his career. The minimum tenure for three premier services—the IAS, IPS and Indian Forest Service—at each posting is two years.

The officer tweeted a letter (dated July 9) of the deputy secretary (personnel) of the Madhya Pradesh general administration department (GAD) to the department of personnel and training (DoPT) of the Union government to highlight that the state CSB met as many as 91 times in the year 2020 to approve the ‘premature’ transfers. Jangid also tweeted the accompanying list of the dates of the said meetings and the number of officers transferred (before completion of minimum tenure).

That the apparent intention of the officer was to highlight the unusual frequency of the ‘premature’ transfers of IAS officers and its negative impact on administration was clear by the last tweet in the string posted by Jangid. This tweet said "Frequent and arbitrary transfers of officers before completion of a reasonable tenure on any post have always been considered as a major reason for the declining standards of administration." DoPT had said this in a note sent to states seeking establishment of civil services boards.

Jangid made it clear that the information (that he tweeted) was “available in public domain on the website of GAD of the government of MP”. He further mentioned that the setting up of CSB for approval of transfers of IAS officers before stipulated tenure was in compliance with a Supreme Court decision of October 2013.

“The rules mandate the civil services board to submit an annual report on January 1 to the Central government about the date of the meetings held by them and also to upload the same on the website of the concerned state government or Union territory in public domain,” Jangid tweeted.

The controversy surrounding Jangid

The controversy surrounding Jangid began on June 16 after screenshots of a trail of his alleged chat in an IAS officers’ group on social media app Signal was leaked. In the purported chat, Jangid made allegations of corruption against the Barwani district collector and also named the chief minister and referred to the CM’s wife as being an office-bearer of a community-based organisation of which the wife of the Barwani collector is also an office-bearer.

This chat was allegedly in context of Jangid’s recent transfer from the post of additional district magistrate (ADM) of Barwani district after barely 42 days of posting, his ninth transfer in 4.5 years. Sources said that he was transferred from Barwani after he put a plug on corruption in purchase of COVID-19 treatment-related medical equipment.

After the chat was leaked, Jangid owned it up and said that it was unfortunate that the chat in a private group was leaked by some fellow IAS officers. Following this, the MP government issued him a show cause notice, in reply to which Jangid refuted the charges of unlawful action, indiscipline and denial to take orders made to him. The officer also termed the notice as ‘mala fide’. No action has yet been initiated on Jangid by the government.

The officer had also made a police complaint of death threat to him and his family based on a call made to him using a social media app two days after the chats leaked.