IRS-IT officer Vikram Pagaria assaulted during IT raid in Madhya Pradesh; condemnations pour in

IN A shocking incident, Indian Revenue Service—Income Tax (IRS-IT) officer, Vikram Pagaria, was assaulted during a tax raid of an edible oil firm in Madhya Pradesh’s Morena on Wednesday. The assault by a group of men was allegedly led by Govind Bansal, father of the oil firm's proprietor. The I-T sleuths, however, managed to…

A day after I-T raid, P Rama Mohana Rao is out; Know more about new Tamil Nadu chief secretary Girija Vaidyanathan

Girija Vaidyanathan

Ms Girija Vaidyanathan, a 1981 batch IAS officer, was on Thursday appointed as the new chief secretary of Tamil Nadu in place of P Rama Mohana Rao on whose residence and office Income-Tax sleuths had raided yesterday and reportedly seized Rs 30 lakh in cash and five kilograms of gold. Rao, a 1985 batch IAS, was handpicked by the then chief minister J Jayalalithaa in June this year to head Tamil Nadu bureaucracy. In that process Rao superseded a number of his seniors including Ms Vaidyanathan, his four-batch senior in IAS. Ms Vaidyanathan is currently…

IAS couple gets poorer by Rs 3 crore!

OVER 10 months after I-T sleuths recovered Rs 3.1 crore (about USD 0.7 million) in cash from 1979 batch Madhya Pradesh cadre IAS couple, Arvind Kumar Joshi and Tinoo Joshi, police attached to the office of the MP Lokayukta raided their home once more. According to media reports, Lokayukta’s special police establishment (SPE) team that conducted the raids recovered cash worth Rs 7 lakh at the residence of the power couple located at a posh locality in Bhopal. Also, Rs 12 lakh in their salary accounts and gold ornaments of 146 grams were also reportedly found. In pure arithmetic terms, the IAS couple became poorer by about Rs 3 crore in less than one year!

Lokayukta’s office has registered a case against the suspended IAS couple.

Meanwhile, Bihar government has begun the process of converting corrupt officials’ properties and converting those in schools. In the first of such case, the home of former motor vehicle inspector (MVI) Raghuvansh Kunwar at Chaira village in Samastipur district was confiscated and according to the announcement made by Bihar HRD minister PK Sahi, the property would be converted into a school.

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Who are Arvind and Tinoo Joshi?

Gujarat HC's direction on bureaucrats' assets

Gujarat high court has directed the Public Information Officers (PIO) to take into account of objections of the officers before passing orders about disclosure of property under the Right To Information (RTI) act. The ongoing case has huge significance whether bureaucrats including IAS, IPS and IFS will need to disclose their personal properties under the RTI Act. The Gujarat High Court has taken up the case in which RTI applicants sought annual property returns of officers. Arvind Agrawal, a 1984 batch Gujarat cadre IAS is fighting the case on behalf of bureaucrats.

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2 court cases on disclosure of bureaucrats’ assets