Anti-corruption crusader Khemka rewarded by Modi Government

Whistleblower IAS officer Ashok Khemka, who was transferred 45 times in his 23-year long career of his career on Tuesday got a green-signal by the civil services board for Central government deputation for which he had applied in 2010. Khemka was constantly hounded by Congress-led Government in Haryana for refusing to kowtow to the political masters.

Who is Ashok Khemka?

47 year-old Khemka, is a 1991-batch IAS officer of Haryana cadre. He is currently the DG of Archives & Archaeology in Haryana state which is his 45th posting. Khemka is said to be a fan of Right to Information (RTI) Act and is has often used it to dig out information relating to undue favours used by people.

Khemka had 44 transfers in 23-year-long career

During his stint as Director-General of Land Consolidation and Land Records-cum-Inspector-General of Registration in the Harayana government, he had also detected transfer of panchayat land to some newly created real estate companies. This land which was transferred was worth several hundred crores of rupees.

Bore the brunt of cancelling the DLF deal

Khemka came to limelight for blowing the lid off from a number of scams and the most notable among them was , the dubious land deals between Gandhi dynasty's son-in-law Robert Vadra and realty giant DLF. Soon after he came out against Vadra-DLF land deals, Khemka started facing death threats from anonymous people.

The Haryana government since then is pursuing extremely to penalise Khemka, and as per a DNA report "Till date two chargesheets have been filed against him, one of which accuses of his failure of responsibilities as the head of HSDC and also for low sale of seeds as the MD of Haryana Seeds Development Corporation (HSDC)."

What was the deal?

As per a TOI report, "Robert Vadra's company Skylight Hospitality had purchased around three acres in Shikohpur village of Gurgaon for Rs 7.5 crore in 2008. After some time, Haryana's town planning department issued a letter of intent to set up a commercial colony on 2.71 acres of this land. In 2008, Skylight and DLF had inked an agreement to sell the three acres to DLF for Rs 58 crore. The sale deed of the land was registered in favour of DLF in 2012.

On October 15, 2012, as then director general of land consolidation department, Khemka cancelled the mutation of land deal on grounds that the assistant consolidation officer, who had sanctioned the change of title in the revenue record in favour of DLF, wasn't competent to do so. But, the Hooda government chargesheeted Khemka alleging he had wrongly cancelled the mutation."

Who came after Khemka:

Yudhvir Singh Khayalia, an ex-bureaucrat took over the Haryana government's land consolidation department a few months after Khemka was transferred out for cancelling the mutation of Robert Vadra's deal with DLF. Khayalia had reversed the order given by Khemka clearing all the blockades in the Robert vadra-DLF deal.

Officer who cleared the deal was rewarded by AAP

AAP, which talks about clean politics gave ticket to former bureaucrat Yudhbir Singh Khyalia from Hisar in Haryana. He was the same officer who replaced Ashok Khemka after he cancelled Robert Vadra's mutations with realty major DLF.

It was yet another instance which revealed AAP's real face by fielding a man in elections who had cleared some shady deals between Sonia Gandhi's son in law Robert Vadra and DLF.

Finally, the embattled whistleblower Khemka's ordeal is over with his transfer on deputation at the Centre getting a green-signal by the Civil services board after PMO's intervention.