Ahmedabad, 13 August, 2011

In an interaction with media persons on the issue of chargesheet that has been served to IPS officer Rahul Sharma today morning, Gujarat government spokesperson minister Shri Jaynarayan Vyas said Sharma was served chargesheet because he breached prescribed norms of code of conduct as far as all India service rules are concerned.

“Even the apex court of the state on the grounds of lacking of exhausting the proper remedies available to him, since he continued to defy the disciplinary laws and acted in a manner that was not befitting an all India service officer under the service rules, code of conduct he has been served now today with a chargesheet spelling out the specific charges against him,” Vyas said.

“Basically in any case if you are not an investigating officer and you happened to be holding a particular position during your passage of time in the service, you are either suppose to hand over whatever the information or whatever the document or whatever evidence come to your notice either to the supervisor or investigative authority of you are suppose to pass it on your successor you can not in a government servant retain any record as if it is your personal possession. I think this was a major breach that Mr. Rahul Sharma subjected himself to retaining some very sensitive information which could have perhaps affected the entire process of law
before the relevant investigation commission or the SIT which was investigating in this matter. and therefore it is a perfect case that he is charged off and he could be charged off,” Vyas further said.

“You can’t retain the copy of the documents which you are not so legally authorized to do that. Tomorrow if somebody starts doing it, I think no government system would work. So this is not within the norms and much less within the prescribed norms of code of conduct as far as all India service rules are concerned,” he added.

“No record in the government becomes a personal possession. There is no reason that these records for a particular reason I am retaining with me because it is expedient in the process of law that I need it as a reference or evidence and therefore he should have taken the permission if at all it was so desired . Otherwise anything that you come to know, anything that comes into your possession during your course of discharge of your duty is duly to be handed over as a property of the government and can not become private possess,” Vyas stated.

“The worst part of it is unbecoming of a union Cabinet minister keeping aside all the federal relations and the norms of discipline that the courtesy so demands in a federal system the union home minister made some inciting statement yesterday, saying that in this kind of an open defiance instead of living it to due process of discipline of law shall be protected by the central government. This is nothing but creating a situation of revolt and encouraging the service officers to revolt against duly elected democratic government. This is just not done in a federal system,” Vyas said in reference to central Home minister P.Chidambaram’s remark on Friday.

“State government has never prevented anybody appearing before any commission or deposing before the SIT. The issue is can you take the records without the knowledge of the state government. Without the approval of the appropriate authorities. The records which are so confidential, so sensitive in nature. Can you copy them out and make them available to you and also use them according to your whim. That’s the issue of debate and no system would permit it,” Vyas clarified.