‘Reward for honesty is humiliation’: IAS officer Ashok Khemka transferred for 53rd time
He was posted in the Science and Technology Department, and has now been shifted to the Archives, Archaeology Department as principal secretary.
The Haryana government on Wednesday transferred 14 Indian Administrative Service officers, including bureaucrat Ashok Khemka, PTI reported. This is Khemka’s 53rd transfer in a 28-year-long career.
After the latest transfer, the 1991-batch officer is now the principal secretary in Archives, Archaeology and Museums Department. He was transferred in March to the Science and Technology Department from the Sports and Youth Affairs Department.
In a tweet, Khemka said: “Transferred again. Back to square one. Constitution Day was celebrated yesterday. Today, order and rules of Supreme Court were broken yet again. Some will be pleased. The reward for honesty is humiliation”.
This was the first major administrative reshuffle ordered by the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Jannayak Janta Party government after they came to power about a month ago. The transfers come into effect immediately.
The Manohar Lal Khattar-led government called the transfer a routine exercise, The Times of India reported.
Khemka’s name first came to limelight in 2012, when he cancelled a land deal involving Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra’s firm and real estate giant DLF. The Congress-ruled government in Haryana had filed a chargesheet against Khemka for “wrongly” cancelling the deal, but the BJP government dropped the chargesheet when it came to power in the state in 2014.