By: Saikat Banerjee

From the time Akhilesh Yadav became the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, a lot of criticism has poured in from the various political corridors of the country of him not been able to deal firmly with the lecherous bureaucracy, as well as the negative influence of various mafias and goons of the State.

As of now, it can be said that he has not been completely able to fulfill the expectations of the common folks of Uttar Pradesh, but his immediate action of suspending Sushil, the tainted IAS, who is charged of molesting a girl in the train will surely bring back some faith among the common people of Uttar Pradesh.

The swiftness of the IAS officers has been in question in the recent past with regard to carrying out their work effectively, but this lack of swiftness transformed into utter briskness on October 1, 2012, when about 20 IAS officers of Uttar Pradesh rushed to the Charbagh Railway Station to lobby for their beloved colleague, Shashi Bhushan Lal Susheel, a 2001 IAS officer, who was detained by the GRP for alleged rape bid on a woman passenger while travelling on the Lucknow Mail from New Delhi to Lucknow on September 30, 2012.

These IAS officers, while exerting their influence, tried their best to bail out Susheel, who was not kept in lockup against rules, and directly or indirectly insisted on a compromise with the victim’s family.

The fiasco created by these IAS officers resulted in GRP Anil Rai adopting a softer attitude and he also tried to conceal relevant facts as much as he could to weaken the charges. This later resulted in his suspension.

Later, a case against the officer was lodged by the mother of the victim who is a Google executive at the GRP Police Station in Lucknow junction on Monday morning.

This resulted in the IAS officer being booked under Section 376/511 (attempt to rape/attempt to commit offences punishable to imprisonment for life) and 506 (criminal intimidation) and Section 294 (obscene act and song), Section 354 of the IPC (assault or criminal force to women with intent to outrage her modesty).

On October 4, 2012 the IAS officer was produced by the GRP in the court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (Railways), A. K. Singh and the court remanded Susheel to 14 days of judicial custody and he was sent to the district jail.

The fact of the matter remains that in this contemporary Indian scenario, the thrust of every Indian is mainly on the Indian politics and on the politicians where everyone is condemning the politicians for the illegal use of their power, which is certainly true to some extent considering the number of scams which has taken place in the recent past and which has resulted in the common people losing faith in the Indian politicians.

The other side of the coin, i.e. the Indian Bureaucracy is hardly in the limelight, where some bureaucrats assume their status to be equal to that of God and indulge in all kinds of malicious and condemnable offence, as is the case with Sashi Bhushan Lal Susheel.

The most astonishing part is that bureaucrats like Susheel are highly educated people and with their sheer hard work and dedication they hold such offices and in spite of this they commit such petty acts, whereas the common folk mainly target the politicians of being uneducated and ill mannered.

The decision by Akhilesh yadav of suspending the tainted IAS has come as a breath of fresh air from the political corridors of Uttar Pradesh, which will certainly, to some extent, help the common people of Uttar Pradesh believe that this action is the beginning of the many positive actions that will be implemented by the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh in the near future.

At last, the question that remains is, Whether IAS Susheel after a fair trial is proven guilty? And if yes, then will the charges leveled against him be really implemented? Will this case be treated on its merit or will it, after creating hype in the media and the political corridors of the country, die out like the many other thousands of cases? Well, all the answers related to this question will be revealed in the time to come.

Saikat Banerjee is an Assistant Professor (Department Of English) at Jaipur National University

E-mail: saikattublu2008@gmail.com