Graft-tainted IAS couple in Madhya Pradesh sacked

New Delhi/Bhopal, Jul 22: Graft-tainted IAS couple in Madhya Pradesh, Arvind and Tinoo Joshi, have been dismissed from service by the government, four years after an income-tax search on their house led to detection of disproportionate assets worth Rs 350 crore and recovery of Rs three crore cash.

The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), nodal authority to deal with matters related to Indian Administrative Service (IAS), sent their dismissal orders to the Madhya Pradesh government. "The dismissal orders have been served to Arvind and Tinoo Joshi," Madhya Pradesh Parliament Affairs Minister and state Cabinet spokesperson Narottam Mishra told PTI today.

The duo were not available for comments. Both Arvind and Tinoo are 1979 batch IAS officers of Madhya Pradesh cadre. They were suspended in February 2010 following the income tax search on their residence in Bhopal. Arvind was due to retire next month and his wife in October this year.

As per rules, they can move Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) or may make a representation to President Pranab Mukherjee against their dismissal order. Maintaining that his government will have zero-tolerance towards corruption, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had said his government "will move court to seek confiscation of their property earned through corrupt means."

Following the tax searches and huge haul of currency notes, Chouhan had written to the Centre seeking their dismissal from service.

"There were certain deficiencies in the state government's proposal due to which we had to write to them seeking clarification. We wrote to them again to get the IAS couple's statement on the matter which is a mandatory requirement to dismiss an officer of the service.

"Then the approval of Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) was taken," a senior DoPT official said explaining the procedure which caused delay. The state government has also decided to confiscate their properties earned through corrupt means and moved a special court in Bhopal, the official said.

The couple had bought agricultural or non-agricultural land at a number of places including Kanha and Bandhavgarh national parks, Raisen, Balaghat, Sehore and Bhopal, according to an appraisal report by the Income Tax department.

It also alleged that the couple purchased 25 flats of which 18 are in Guwahati, six in Bhopal and one in New Delhi. Papers of seven plots at Patel Nagar (central Delhi) have also been recovered from their possession, the report said.

The IT search had resulted in recovery of jewellery worth Rs 67 lakh and foreign currency worth Rs 7 lakh, the IT department had claimed.

PTI