Soon after the controversy surrounding the transfer of CBI SP Sudhanshu Dhar Mishra, who registered the FIR against former ICICI MD Chanda Kochar, her husband Deepak and Videocon Group MD VN Dhoot, another SP has questioned his transfer by acting CBI chief Nageswara Rao and also raised finger on the mass transfers by the interim chief.
In a letter to Rao last week, Superintendant of Police T Rajah Balaji has alleged vendetta as the reason behind his transfer to CBI Academy Ghaziabad from the Anti-Corruption Bureau at the agency headquarters in the national Capital.
“You know better than me that you are not a man of any honour. I am an eternal optimist about humanitarianism. I derive strength from these immortal lines from Shakespeare, ‘There is some soul of goodness in things evil, Would men observingly distill it out’,” Balaji said in his letter to Rao.
“…I request you to search your heart and recall this fact you bear, or think you bear, an animosity to be, not to an ailing old woman. I request you on purely humanitarian grounds in the hope that you can truly make a start to redeem your humanity. It is never late in life to become a good man again. Trust me. Trust the better part of your heart. No more, No less. The rest is up to you,” the aggrieved SP further said.
Another reason cited by Balaji is his complaint of misconduct against Rao to then CBI chief Alok Verma. “It is a known fact that I had complained about your misconduct to the then Director CBI, vide letter dated March 11, 2017, and subsequently, when you had served me with a memo, your misconduct was set out in more explicit terms by me vide letter dated May 2, 2017, and now you have abused your official position to service your personal sleepless malice and prejudice against me at the expense of institutional and public interests.
The official post of the Director cannot be used for any purpose other than the institutional and public interests,” Balaji said in his complaint.
This is the fourth timer within a period of two years that Balaji has been transferred with the last being issued on August 1, 2018 in pursuance of his request to then CBI Director Alok Verma vide a handwritten request dated June 16, 2018 for posting in any branch in New Delhi so as to enable his wife to be better placed to provide care to her mother who is a cancer patient undergoing treatment at AIIMS. After being relieved on September 28, 2018 he was posted in the ACB and he joined on October 10, 2018.
“It was incumbent on and necessary in your capacity as only Director-in-Charge not to go on a spree of mass transfers of various officers from the level of Joint Directors to Additional Superintendants of Police and resort to nay necessary transfer only on rational grounds that merit such a course in public interest,” he added.
Meanwhile, a CBI spokesperson said, “The representation dated 22.01.2019 as reportedly submitted by Shri T Rajah Balaji, SP, CBI about his transfer, as mentioned in media reports, has not yet been received in the Office of Director/CBI. As and when it is received through proper channel, appropriate action as per rules will be taken. It may further be mentioned that Shri Rajah Balaji has been transferred to Ghaziabad, which is part of the NCR only.”