IAS Association changes its Twitter logo in support of HC Gupta, KS Kropha, KC Samariya -- the officers convicted in a coal scam

IN A rare occasion and some would argue in the confrontation with judiciary, the IAS Association in its official Twitter handle has placed a unique logo. It reads: “I Stand By HC Gupta, KS Kropha, KC Samariya #IAS”. Only on Friday, a Delhi court held former IAS and ex-coal secretary HC Gupta guilty of corruption and criminal conspiracy in a case linked to the allotment of coal blocks in West Bengal. The other officers found guilty were…

Harish Chandra Gupta: 10 things to know about this jailed retired IAS; colleagues call him “Sadhu”

HC Gupta as coal secretary (File photo)

Harish Chandra Gupta, 67, is a 1971 batch IAS, retired as union coal secretary in November 2008. He is currently in jail in corruption cases related to the allocation of coal blocks, something being investigated by the CBI. But for quite sometime, serving IAS officers across cadres and batches have not only been vouching for Gupta's “honestly”, but have gone one step further— openly lobbying for his case particularly after Gupta told a CBI court that he did not have money to engage a good lawyer. His batch mate and former chief election commissioner Dr SY Quraishi calls him one of the most honest officers “who lived  like a sadhu”. Without going into the merits of the case, BoI here presents 10 facts about Gupta who is being implicated for what many others are calling as “honest mistakes”: