Vigilance books controversial IFS officer for fake appreciation letter

CHANDIGARH: Punjab state vigilance bureau on Saturday registered a case against senior controversial

IFS officer

Harsh Kumar, who was posted at Hoshiarpur in 2015, for submitting fake

appreciation letter

to the state government for removal of adverse remarks from his annual confidential report (ACR). The officer is now posted as chief conservator of forests (IT) at Mohali. The vigilance has also booked director of Jalandhar-based Palta Engineering Works Private Limited Ajay Palta for forgery, using forged document as genuine, and criminal conspiracy at Mohali police station.


Then chief forest conservator Kuldeep Kumar Lomis had written some adverse comments in Harsh’s ACR of 2014-15. The 1985-batch IFS officer had at that time submitted a written request to the forest minister for omitting negative notes from ACR by attaching appreciation letter’s copy. During the investigation, the vigilance bureau found that the appreciation letter dated May 4, 2015, was not issued by Dr Ashok Kumar, Scientist-F, in-charge of genetic and tree production department of the Forest Research Institute (FRI) at Dehradun as claimed in the document.

When the appreciation letter was received on May 11, 2015, in the office of principal secretary of forest and wildlife protection, Lomis had written to the FRI to verify its authentication. To this, the FRI responded that this letter was never issued or dispatched by the institute.

The bureau also found that the FRI was closed on May 4, 2015, on account of Budha Purnima. The office or institute could be opened only after taking prior permission from the FRI head but no such permission was granted for the same so the letter could not have come from the institute. Also, Harsh, Vijay Kumar and Palta had submitted to the VB that they went to FRI on May 4, 2015, on a vehicle bearing registration No. PB 08 CH 7565. But the vigilance could not find any entry of this vehicle at the entry gate register of the FRI on that day.

As per the forensic science laboratory report, bureau found that signature on the appreciation letter was not of scientist Dr Ashok Kumar and no such letter was not recovered from the hard disk of his computer. It was also found that the letterhead used by the scientist carried a green logo, but the logo printed in this forged appreciation letter was black.

After these finding, the vigilance department finally filed a case against the IFS officer on Saturday. Harsh is not new to controversies. In January 2018, he was transferred from the post of chief conservator of forests (hills) to chief conservator of forests (IT) on the chief minister’s directions for passing alleged

controversial

orders on the implementation of the Punjab Land Preservation Act (PLPA), 1900, in Mohali.

The Punjab forest department had in April 2018, sent three cases to chief minister Amarinder Singh’s office for issuing chargesheet to Harsh Kumar in three separate cases. In October, the Punjab advocate general Atul Nanda had recommended registration of an FIR against the officer for disappearance of a file regarding the probe into a case wherein he had regularized services of 33 daily wage employees. An inquiry had found that Harsh had entered the office of an officer in the CMO during her absence and was carrying a file in his hand while leaving her office. However, he had denied all allegations against him and had challenged chargesheets issued to him by the government before the Central Administrative Tribunal’s Chandigarh bench.