Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy’s ‘politics of victimization’ seems to have reached at peak and in a rarest of rare act senior IPS officer AB Venkateswara Rao was forced to be on suspension almost for five year’s of Jagan’s tenure.
However, on the directions of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) and the AP High Court refused to interfere in its order, the government finally revoked suspension on Friday, the day of his retirement.
Even after ABV has won a series of legal battles starting from the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) to the Supreme Court, during five year of Jagan’s term he was kept under suspension, bearing 14 days in the middle. Even his salaries were also not released.
The government even ignoring the CAT directive given earlier this month for his immediate posting and also refusal of the AP High Court to interfere into CAT’s order, the government is adamant in giving him posting on the last day of his service, May 31.
ABV, who served as Intelligence Chief in the TDP government, was targeted after Jagan became the CM. The officers of the All India Service are dismayed that the history of a Chief Minister and an IPS officer has achieved so much, never anywhere in the country. If he has done any thing wrong he may be punished or a probe may be conducted or some disciplinary action may be taken.
This is the first time in the country that a DG rank officer is going to retire without posting for five years and also during the suspension period.
AB Venkateswara Rao with over three decades of service in the police department has a clean track record and nowhere under any government he was subjected to such victimization. Not a single allegation was levelled against him earlier.
Jagan took oath as Chief Minister on May 30, 2019. On the next day i.e. on May 31, the government ordered the suspension of AB Venkateswara Rao. During the TDP government between 2014-2019, allegations were made that AB Venkateswara Rao had awarded a contract to his son’s firm for surveillance equipment.
Even though the CAT ruled that AB Venkateswara Rao’s suspension was invalid and he should be reinstated immediately, the state government did not count. A copy of the judgment was sent to CS Jawahar Reddy but the government did not take any action on it.
Although the CS file was sent to CM Jagan for his approval, it is reported that Jagan refused to see the file before going to London recently. With this, the process of re-employing AVB has come to a standstill. Jagan will return home on the 1st. But Venkateswara Rao should retire on 31st of this month. As a result, he had to retire without the execution of the court verdict.
