Four bureaucrats changed ACR of forest official: Police

CHANDIGARH: Haryana Police's crime branch has found involvement of three officers, including a deputy secretary to the state government, in a case pertaining to tampering of

annual confidential report

(ACR) of a senior forest officer that stopped his elevation to the Indian

Forest Service

(IFS) in 2010. The crime branch is now investigating the role of other senior officers, including those who were also in the race to be elevated as IFS officers.

Initially, the state police had lodged an FIR into the matter in 2011, but later the case was transferred to crime branch. A senior officer told TOI that the crime branch has already arrested four officials, including deputy secretary Virender Sharma and forest department superintendent Rajpal Singh.

"We have proceeded for action only after accessing concrete evidence against the accused," said a crime branch officer. Sources say role of other officers, including a senior forest officer who was contender for elevation as an IFS (

Indian Forest Services

) officer, is also being probed. Sources in the government said that this was the same officer, who was previously booked in connection with a scam in UPA government's flagship rural employment scheme MGNREGS.

The FIR in the current case was lodged on the complaint of

Satyavir Singh Sheoran

, who recently retired as divisional forest officer of Fatehabad. In his complaint, Sheoran, an HFS (

Haryana Forest Services

) officer, had explained how his ACR was tampered with.

Sheoran had joined as a forest ranger in 1981, and was promoted as HFS officer in 1981. The central government in 2010 had asked the state government to submit a panel of HFS officers for their elevation in the Indian Forest Services. "I was hopeful that my name would be included in the panel as my all ACRs were very good or excellent," Sheoran told the investigators.

His ACR was reviewed by an IFS officer Jeet Ram (now retired) but someone in the office of financial commissioner (forest) changed the same. Sheoran was shocked when he came to know about the adverse remarks in his ACR. But Jeet Ram, in response to a legal notice, had informed Sheoran that he had written only "I agree" and the rest of the words were not in his handwriting. Sheoran accessed copy of his ACR under the RTI Act and sent the same to a forensic expert for comparison who confirmed that there was addition in the sentence.

Then, Sheoran approached the police suspecting role of his juniors, who were also keen to be promoted, in the tampering of the records.