Govt moves to cut off pension of top govt scientist

NEW DELHI: Department of personnel & training (DoPT) has recommended action against Samir K Brahmachari, former secretary, department of scientific and industrial research, under rule 9 of the central civil service pension rules, 1972.
This could result in Brahmachari, also a J C Bose national fellow, forfeiting his pension benefits. Under rule 9, the President reserves the right of withholding a pension or gratuity, or both, either in full or in part, or withdrawing a pension in full or in part.
The DoPT recommendation comes after two charges against Brahmachari were proven. The first case relates to the setting up of The Centre for Genomics Applications (TCGA) under public-private partnership (PPP). A committee headed by R A Mashelkar, former director general, CSIR and consisting of Brahmachari and Rajesh Gokhale had decided on the agreement with the private party. In 2013 the comptroller & auditor general (CAG) in its report said the Institute of Genomics & Integrative Biology (IGIB) did not take due diligence in the process of selecting the partner for engaging in PPP for setting up TCGA. CAG said IGIB selected the partner without waiting for the assessment report of the consultant hired by it to conduct industry analysis of the laboratory products.
After the CAG report, then minister Jaipal Reddy set up a two-member committee to look into the issues raised by it. The committee consisting of P S Ahuja, acting director-general CSIR, and Anu J Singh, joint secretary in CSIR/DSIR said the private party did not fulfill its obligations as envisaged in the agreement. It said the project was abandoned and its objectives could not be accomplished. Reddy accepted the report and said “threat to ownership of land cannot be ruled out.” He said “government land measuring 10.75 acres whose value runs into thousands of crores” should be safeguarded. Reddy said termination notice be given to the private party. He also referred the matter to the CVC with a request to carry out direct enquiry. Last November, CVC asked department of scientific & industrial research to “fix responsibility on officers concerned.”
The second charge against Brahmachari is about irregular appointment of awardees of post-graduate research programme in engineering-2009 against regular positions of scientists in different laboratories of CSIR. After allegations of irregularities were made, a fact-finding committee was formed consisting of Shantanu Consul, former secretary, DoPT and SK Joshi, former secretary, department of scientific and industrial research. The committee said “though there is no evidence of any criminal conspiracy, procedure and method adopted could have been more transparent and requisite approval of the appropriate authorities could have been taken if a departure from normal practice was involved.”
Both the complaints and fact-finding reports were seen by cabinet secretariat and after examination DoPT sought action under pension rules.