In a major embarrassment for the Nitish Kumar Government, the Delhi High Court has asked the State to act against the mafia and guilty police officers who had hatched a criminal conspiracy against the Bihar cadre IAS officer Dr Jitendra Gupta in his first posting in the State.
On the directions of the court, sources in the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), said that Bihar has also released Gupta's salary withheld for almost more than two years now. The Court directed the Bihar Government to release all the arrears of pay and allowances to Gupta, who has sought inter-state transfer from Bihar to Haryana alleging threat to his life for acting tough against the “organised” transport mafia in the State which is led by people at top in the State Governance.
A bench of justices Vipin Sanghi and Jyoti Singh said the Bihar government shall continue to pay the salary to Gupta till the disposal of the writ petition, in which the state government challenged a 2018 order of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT). CAT had directed the Centre to consider the case of the officer for inter-state deputation to Haryana or for Central Government deputation.
Another morale booster for Gupta came as the Bihar government withdrew its ‘defamatory’ Press release against him which remained on its official website for over two and half years now.
After Gupta acted against transport mafias in Bihar, he was framed in a false case of bribery by mafias which included till top level of the State administration, as per one intelligence report of Bihar Government dated June 19, 2017.
A criminal case was registered against Gupta in July 2016 on the complaint by mafia Arvind Kumar Singh. He was arrested and jailed for a month. Later the case was struck off by Patna High Court vide order dated October 28, 2016 after it was found to be a false. The order of High Court was then upheld by Supreme Court in February 2017.