‘Official’ Matrimony

Impact: The government has no business to meddle into its officers’ private affairs

By YP Singh

YP Singh

The higher ups must nail an officer who exploits the hapless public for his greed and not meddle in private affairs

Nidhi Pandey, an IAS officer from Kerala cadre, married Deepak Pandey an IPS officer from Maharashtra cadre. Based on the government policy of keeping spouses together, she was transferred to Maharashtra.

Within two years, marital friction between the two surfaced. Nidhi complained to the chief secretary that her husband tortured her physically and mentally. The chief secretary referred the matter to the director general of police (DGP). He ordered an inquiry, not as the chief of police holding statutory powers of criminal investigation, but as an administrative entity.

Seeing not much happening, women IAS officers felt anguished. More than half a dozen senior women IAS officers met the DGP. It was a big event for the media. All over, the rhetoric went on — Pandey tortured his wife and so was unfit to don the uniform. None was ready to hear his version.

As media hype ascended, special procedures were adopted to nail the condemned. And then, a complaint under administrative inquiry was imported into the police station to lodge an fir. Special teams were formed to keep a watch so that the culprit did not abscond.

What if the wife and husband both worked in a private company and the wife lodged a similar complaint with the managing director. Would the procedure of law have been the same? Would the local police get hold of the complaint before the managing director, and convert it into an fir. Would they form so many teams, disguised in plainclothes, to nab the private sector executive?
The point is simple. Why should we discriminate against persons in procedures? Media hype or no hype, should not the law be the same for everyone?

A far more important question. Why should the government meddle in the private marital affairs of officers? With just two or three IPS officers being inducted in the cadre every year, should not the government use its administrative powers to curtail corruption. It may have been a conspiracy of the corrupt officers to engage the government in private marital affairs of officers and suspend them, so that these officers could have a gala time.

And that is how, even though the statutory review committee recommended the reinstatement of the suspended IPS officer, at the last minute, further rules were applied and the positive recommendation was thwarted.

It is high time, the government got over all these pressures. The higher ups must nail an officer who exploits the hapless public for his greed and not meddle into the private affairs of an officer whose professional honesty in the field of service was never in question.

The writer is an IPS officer-turned lawyer