Police find no evidence against Khemka

The Panchkula police have concluded in their inquiry that there is no evidence against IAS officer Ashok Khemka in the complaint filed by a Dalit employee of Haryana State Warehousing Corporation (HSWC).The complainant Vijay Dahiya, technical assistant with HSWC, had filed an application at district courts of Panchkula for registering a first-information report (FIR) against Khemka under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities Act), 1989, in September last year.

The court had then marked an inquiry under section 202 of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) to the police. On Wednesday, inspector Manish Kumar, station house officer (SHO) of Sector 5 police station, here, submitted the inquiry report before the court.

Allegations
The allegations made by Dahiya pertained to tenure of Khemka as managing director of HSWC. Dahiya alleged that Khemka had used abusive language to demean his intellectual and moral character. He claimed that his annual confidential report (ACR) of 2009-10 was spoiled with adverse remarks that were false and frivolous. He told the court that when he challenged the adverse remarks, they were set aside.

He pleaded before the court for registration of an FIR against Khemka under the SC and ST Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989.

Khemka reacted to allegations in a letter to then chief secretary PK Chaudhery dated October 8, 2013, a few days after the complaint was filed against him. He wrote that then principal secretary Roshan Lal (now additional chief secretary, agriculture department) had expunged the adverse remarks in the annual confidential report (ACR) of Dahiya, which he used to target him in Panchkula court. He had also pointed out that the adverse remarks were set aside by Lal in an order signed on May 22, 2012, but it was released after 14 months on July 1, 2013, to the HSWC and Dahiya and also that he was not competent to pass such an order.

As per documents of HSWC, it was Khemka who had promoted Dahiya from the post of junior technical assistant to technical assistant on December 17, 2008. However, acting on a complaint from a retired employee of the HSWC and evidence, Khemka then had recorded in the ACR for 2009-10, "…Vijay Dahiya sat on files and even took some files home. There were complaints that he demanded money from retired employees for clearing their no-dues cases. His integrity is adverse." Before recording the remark, Khemka had got recovered files from Dahiya's house and a chargesheet was issued to him.

Police inquiry
Sources informed that the police conducted the inquiry for close to 8 months and found that there was no evidence in the allegations made by Dahiya. As many as 12 witnesses were examined by the police and it found no substance in allegations of Dahiya. The next date of hearing in the case is June 11 for consideration of the report.

In February this year, the local court here had also rejected a complaintfor registering a case of abetment to suicide of a former employee of Housing Board against Khemka.