The Railway Ministry has suspended three top railway officials, posted in the crucial Commercial Departments, facing charges of corruption and sexual offences against them.
Railway sources said that regular complaints against the erring officials — Chief Commercial Manager (CCM) Northern Railway (NR), Deputy Commercial Manager (DCM) lucknow Division of NR and DCM Moradabad Division of NR — were received at Railway Board following which the disciplinary action against them was necessitated.
One of them, Deputy Commercial Manager (DCM) of Mordabad Division J N Meena, under the Northern Railway headquarters, has both corruption as well as sexual harassment complaints against him.
The two other against whom action has been taken are CCM D K Misra and DCM lucknow A Kumar both charged for giving patronage to the DCM Moradabad Division even after knowing his antecedents. “There were even corruption cases received against both Misra and Kumar for quite some time,” said sources.
This is the first major case of suspension taken by the Chairman Railway Board (CRB) Ashwani lohani as part of zero tolerance towards corruption, sources said adding an audio tape purportedly containing conversation between the suspended DCM and another senior official of the division has been received at the CRB Secretariat.
In the audio, one of them is heard saying that “his immediate reporting boss (Sr DCM Vivek Sharma) cannot even touch him; since he works under the tutelage of DRM Moradabad Division (the highest officer of the division) and CCM DK Misra”.
The complaint note talks about Meena being a habitual drinker and does not attend the office on a daily basis. “As per my enquiry, he (Meena) is not attending office daily and regularly and having the support of corrupt DRM Moradabad and CCM Northern Railway (D K Misra). Both the highest authorities of division even after receiving several complaints corruption and sexual offences against Meena, have not acted. Meena often threatens his staff that he is the collection agent of DRM and CCM. Please look into the matter urgently,” said the complaint lodged at CRB office by none other than a very senior officer of the zone.