It is open season on the Congress. Even as Union LawMinister and party leader Salman Khurshid battled allegations of siphoningfunds for the disabled given to a trust run by his family, the party founditself in a bind over the transfer of Ashok Khemka, an IAS officer of theHaryana cadre, after Khemka told The Hindu that he was being shunted out forordering a probe into the land deals between party chief Sonia Gandhi’sson-in-law, Robert Vadra, and DLF Ltd, a real estate company. Khemka said thathe was being persecuted for ordering a probe into all deals of Vadra and thecancellation of the mutation and change in ownership in a Rs 58 crore dealbetween the latter and DLF for a 3.5 acre piece of land in Manesar-Shikohpur.The land was sold by Vadra’s Sky Light Hospitality in September this year.
A 1991 batch officer, Khemka, had received transfer orderson October 11 and had ordered an inquiry to look into the “allegedundervaluation of some of the properties registered by Robert Vadra or hiscompanies as vendor or vendee” on October 15. However, he said that he hadinitiated the inquiry on October 8. The Haryana government, issuing a denial,said that the transfer was in compliance of a Punjab and Haryana High Courtorder in a case involving the officer. Khemka demitted office on October 16,only after having signed the orders for the probe a day before. He has assumedoffice as the managing director of the Haryana Seed Development Corporation.Interestingly, he has been transferred 43 times in the past 19 years.
Media reports imputing that the transfer was a ‘punishment’have led to an all-out attack on the party with the opposition at the Centreand in the State demanding that the Bhupinder Hooda government in Haryana offerclarifications. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said that the transfer waspolitical bullying of those “daring to question the first family” and wasintended to warn others against attempting it. “The transfer is victimisationand exposes the Emergency mindset of the Congress,” BJP spokesperson PrakashJavadekar said. Arvind Kejriwal-led India Against Corruption, which had firstflagged the deals, came out in support of Khemka saying that the chief ministermust explain why the officer has been transferred. “Can an officer betransferred merely because he was investigating Vadra?” asked Kejriwal.
