Cracking the disciplinary whip, the Yogi Adityanath government suspended six senior officials of the Animal Husbandry department on charges of corruption. It also asked all officials to bring transparency in their working or be ready to face action.
Director of Animal Husbandry Charan Singh Yadav was among the six officials who were suspended for their involvement in a recruitment scam as they made appointments in Animal Husbandry department ignoring the directives of the government.
Sources in the government said that among others who were suspended are Additional Director Ashok Kumar Singh, Additional Director (Basti) JC Dwivedi, Additional Director (Bareilly) AP Singh and Additional Director (Lucknow) Haripal.
The issue dates back to 2012-13 when Samajwadi Party was in power. The then Akhilesh Yadav government had announced 1,148 vacancies in the department. Irregularities were reported in the recruitment made across the state with the connivance of officials in almost all zones. It was alleged that officials, under the pressure of the then government, made appointments, ignoring the rules and regulations.
When the Yogi Adityanath government took charge in 2017, it ordered a probe into the recruitment. In December, the probe was handed over to Special Investigation Team (SIT).
The SIT in its report said that against 100 marks, officers divided the examination into written and interview with 80 and 20 marks respectively. The irregularities were made during interview in which candidates to be selected were hand-picked and brilliant students were ignored.
“There were cases where candidates who scored 78 out of 80 marks in the written exam were given two marks in the interview. In one case, a candidate got five marks in the interview despite scoring 77 in written examination,” a senior official said.
This prompted the government to take action against the senior officials of the Animal Husbandry department and on the directive of the Chief Minister, six senior officials of the department were suspended.