Bengaluru, Mar 4: The Karnataka High Court has issued a notice to the state government in connection with the denial of retirement benefits to a retired deputy commissioner of commercial taxes who had fought against the illegal iron ore lobby.
Justice G Narendra also directed the state to respond to the notice before March 9, stating the reasons for withholding the officer’s retirement benefits.
Advocate Ramananda, appearing for the retired officer Josephat Andrews, explained that the single-judge bench also warned the government of stringent action.
Petitioner Josephat Andrews said his retirement benefits amounting to Rs 25.88 lakh were being withheld since 2014.
In 2009, Andrews detected a huge scam involving Vijaya Leasing, a company associated with former minister Gali Janardhan Reddy. Immediately he wrote to his higher officials explaining to them how the department was owed Rs 1,400 crore in taxes by the company. Immediately after that, Andrews was transferred to Bengaluru.
The media exposed the scam in 2012. Thereafter, to harass the officer, Andrews was served notice for allegedly not conducting an inspection of M/s Vijaya Leasing, which was controlled by the family of then tourism minister Gali Janardhana Reddy, on July 11, 2012. He was discharged by a full departmental enquiry.
The petitioner was issued a second show cause notice on Jan 29, 2014 on the same charges. Before his retirement, he was docked two increments, denied promotional benefits and his pension was reduced without following due process.
He was served yet another notice with charges that he did not inspect goods vehicles, and an order was passed on April 30, 2019 reducing his pension by 5 per cent, an unprecedented punitive action.
This order was quashed by the Karnataka Administrative Tribunal (KAT), which also ordered payment of retirement benefits to Andrews within five months. However, the benefits were not released to him.
“Rule 214 of the Karnataka Civil Services Rules (KCSR) make it clear that no enquiry can be held four years after an officer’s retirement. Belying all statutory rules and precedents of the Supreme Court, Josephat Andrews’ retirement benefits were withheld for five years. Andrews therefore approached the High Court,” advocate Ramananda explained.
Josephat Andrews recalled to Deccan Chronicle that although mining activity was in full swing in 2008, the commercial tax department maintained that it had nothing to do with mining. “I travelled to Gujarat, Maharashtra and Bellary to investigate. I found tax evasion of thousands of crores. When I visited M/s the Vijaya Leasing facility – it was operating from an old oil mill premises–within 20 minutes I got calls from Ali, a person claiming to be the personal assistant of Gali Janardhan Reddy. He told me to get out of the premises as it belonged to his boss. Then calls came from minister Sreeramulu and MLA Nagendra.
Within minutes 200-300 rowdies gathered around the building and my superior asked me to come back. Instead of filing a police complaint and forming a special team to deal with the situation, the department transferred me to Bengaluru,” he explained.
Talking about the High Court directive, Josephat Andrews said, “I have suffered a lot. Instead of getting a reward for increasing revenues by Rs 2,000 crore, I was punished.”
Comments
Cheering PAK against india is wrong. But Anyone can celebrate any team. There is no law.
@milan u sound like, terrorism is wrong, but anyone can be terrorists. there is no law. :P
shame on jihadist muslims who back stab our motherland , shameless beggars .kick them out of india or hack them .
How cheering for Pakistan Cricket Team is wrong? Can we then support England team when the British had ruled and looted India for 200 years? There are numerous England supporters in India but no one is against them! Can we support France in football when French had looted and invaded India? Why do Indians support Brazil or France or Germany in FIFA when Indian team is not playing in it? Indians only need to support Kabbadi instead... Come on guys, just keep aside your enemity atleast in sports.. Support whichever team you like..
They should not have celebrated Pak win openly...if at their home does not matter but not openly....their soldiers are killing our innocent soldiers....
Cheering for a team of enemy country, Celebrating the victory of enemy country against our own country is not at all justified. We all Indians should be ONE against such country in any activity. There is hard feeling or soft feeling PERIOD.
Are we going to celebrate victory of Bangladesh against India??? No one does that. Then, why Pakistan???
Some fools are celebrating pakistan victory and saffron b.fools are exaggerating it for political mileage
Its proved many times who z bloody anti nationalists , when rama sena hoisted pakistan flag in Sindagi, Mutalik gang s bomb blast in hubballi court , ABVP s Pakistan zindabad @ JNU and now one more allegation, grow up sangis this style bcom old
Soon after the match many of Indian team players wholeheartedly congratulated Pakistani team and shook hands with them. Are Indian team players also anti-nationals? Do they also face sedition case?
Good point Rajan Shetty. Keep commenting. Silence of nationalists will encourage anti-nationals.
These gandutva guys have a very little heart
Whole cricket team of india should be in jail including gavaskar and gambhir . They congratulated Pakistan and praised them...
Actually the fact is ...this is the result of Media propaganda by RSS since many years ......................they were taunting Muslim youths telling Pakistan which they have no connection and bond is real friend......then simply youths started to anger the Saffronists by supporting pakistan verbally ....but some youth still using the same tactic to anger RSS ...but Rss a anti national organization uses the same to polarize ...unlike RAMA SENE which hoisted Pakistan Flag in Sindhagi ...is out of the talk now ????????????
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