By IANS,
Lucknow : Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati’s principal information secretary Vijay Shankar Pandey was Saturday divested of his charges and moved out to the position of member of Board of Revenue over his alleged links with jailed money launderer Hasan Ali.
Pandey was alleged to have links with Amlendu Pandey, who is under the Enforcement Directorate scanner for his connections with jailed Hasan Ali, who is facing charges in the Rs.35,000 crore tax evation scam.
A powerful Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the 1979 batch, Pandey was also divested of his additional charges as principal secretary (secretariat administration) and the state’s food and drug authority.
In his recorded statement before enforcement authorities, Amalendu Pandey clearly spelt out his contacts and communication with Vijay Shankar Pandey.
Making the announcement on the senior bureaucrat’s removal from the post, state Cabinet Secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh told a press conference here Saturday that “whatever Vijay Shankar Pandey had done was in his personal capacity; it has nothing whatsoever to do either with the UP government or with the chief minister.”
“Pandey was not a part of the chief minister’s personal secretariat, from where he had been removed quite sometime back. Currently, he was only associated with the chief minister’s set-up in his capacity as principal secretary (information).”
“As far as his interaction or communication with the Enforcement Directorate was concerned, that was purely in his personal capacity. Therefore, in case he faces any liability on that account, he would have to undertake that in his personal capacity,” singh said.
Pandey declined to comment on the developments.
He had recently received a complaint against present Enforcement Director Arun Mathur filed on behalf of India Rejuvenation Initiative (IRI), a voluntary anti-corruption group of activists drawn from the judiciary, bureaucracy, police, scientists, as well as representatives of civil society.
Pandey, who was among the 18 founders of the organisation, had initiated the complaint raising questions about the enforcement director’s integrity.