Mayawati orders prosecution of 12 IPS officers

Lucknow, Oct 23 (IANS) In a late night development, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati Thursday ordered the prosecution of a dozen officers of the elite Indian Police Service (IPS) for their alleged involvement in a recruitment scam during the regime of her political rival and predecessor Mulayam Singh Yadav, chief of the Samajwadi Party.

The officers were known for their proximity to Yadav, whose brother and then minister Shivpal Yadav was at the helm of the recruitment of some 22,000 policemen.

As many as 18,000 of those policemen were sacked by the Mayawati government following a high level probe that exposed the blatant flow of money and largescale unlawful practices, including sexual exploitation of women applicants.

As many as 34 IPS officers were suspended in connection with the irregularities in the recruitment. But they were all reinstated in a surprise move within the next two months.

However, the anti-corruption department was asked to probe the conduct of these officers. 'Following completion of reports in the case of 12 officers, the government has decided to initiate prosecution proceedings against them,' a top government spokesman told reporters.

'While the administration has been directed to prepare for lodging of criminal cases against them, a communication has been sent to the union home ministry to seek their concurrence as all of them belong to an all India service,' he added.

Each of the officers is of Deputy Inspector General rank in which capacity they had headed the respective recruitment boards in different districts.

They include Daljit Singh Chaudhary,Shailendra Pratap Singh, Ramendra Vikram Singh, Chabi Nath Singh, S.K. Gupta, V.K. Agarwal, B.B. Bakshi, R.S. Yadav, Malkhan Singh Yadav, B.S. Tripathi, Satish Chandra Mathur and Akhilesh Mehrotra.