The most loved and haunted bureaucrat of undivided Bihar; often referred as people’s bureaucrat; Sajal Chakraborty (64) took last breath on Thursday morning at a Bengaluru based hospital, where he was under treatment for various ailments for the past few months.

The chequered life of the 1980 batch IAS officer, born and brought-up in Ranchi, is the story of a spoilt genius. The man lived most of his life unorganized and credulous that cost his reputation; a brilliant bureaucrat twice served as Chief Secretary of Jharkhand ending as a convict of a couple of cases of Rs 950 crore fodder scam perpetrated by the then Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad and Co during the undivided Bihar.

As a college student to a bureaucrat for a good part of his life, he remained at the centre stage, hogging the limelight for both good and bad reasons.

Most of his old friends said that Sajal had passion for good food, pet animals, whom he loved like his children and a flamboyant lifestyle. But, the brilliant student of Economics was not obsessive about money.

Call it an irony or coincidence that he was convicted in the corruption case when the CBI charged him for accepting a laptop from the accused suppliers of fodder scam when he was DC of Chaibasa. 

But the flipside of his life; he resembled a Shakespearean or Dostoveskian character, who was naïve and essentially good that proved vice not virtue for him.

“I had arrested him from Kolkata in a fodder scam case. I found him very straightforward, but eccentric. But he was not cunning at all. He had nothing to hide.  He never misused his position to browbeat any CBI official. During investigation the CBI had seized a notebook containing over 150 pages. He was planning to write a book on fodder scam investigations. We just laughed that when the rest of suspects and accused are destroying evidence this man is drafting evidence against him. During trials of fodder scam cases he would often joke that a Charachor Federation should be formed,” a senior CBI official said.

If he was known for his massive girth - all 150 kg he was known for love for the poor and downtrodden.

Nevertheless, Sajal would himself poke fun at his massive girth, calling it king size. His unique size was always discussed among the CBI officials for whom he proved to be a slippery customer for quite a long time."How can he hide from us? He is so big, some part of his body would always stick out somewhere," CBI officials often quoted this about him. Only the CBI had the difficulty in finding him otherwise lawyers in Patna routinely met him and so did a handful of journalists.

Be it his penchant for flying planes or keeping thoroughbred horses, colourful dresses or making surprise visits to government hospitals, health centres, police stations - he was a favourite of the news hungry  media.

As the DC of Chaibasa, Chakravarty started a series of clubs - flying club, horse-riding club, boat club and a rifle club. Such martial hobbies he was himself hooked to, is because his father and brother were in the Army. It was perhaps a bulge out of his suppressed dream to fly high in the sky during his stay in the Indian Air Force which he left on saying "this bhadralok is not meant for ground duty".

The man had temerity who had once refused the then Bihar chief Lalu Prasad to serve him food packet inside his helicopter during his Chaibasa visit. His clashes with Lalu during the 1995 Assembly election campaign were the most sought-after stories.

However, Lalu was not the first and last chief minister whom Chakraborty had clashed with for authority. When Raghubar Das became chief minister of Jharkhand during a review meeting in January 2015 he had a heated argument with the chief minister. Hewas removed as chief secretary and show-cause notice was slapped on him.

Two broken marriages, convictions and multiple medical problems could not crush his spirit and agility through his life..