Daddy not cool: How Mulayam is embarrassing Akhilesh

He might have burnt his fingers a couple of times. But old habits die hard, especially when it is someone like Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, whose soft corner for the tainted and corrupt once again became the cause of embarrassment for his chief minister son Akhilesh over whom he bosses like some kind of "super CM".

The state’s principal secretary (appointments) Rajiv Kumar, entrusted with the responsibility of handling postings and transfers of the state’s top bureaucracy was sent to jail earlier this week for his acts of commission and omission in a multi-crore land allotment scam while he was the deputy chief executive officer of Noida, the gold mine of Uttar Pradesh, about two decades ago.

The news of the arrest of this 1983-batch IAS officer did not come as a surprise to anybody who knew of his conviction by a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court together with his former boss and then Noida CEO, Neera Yadav.

The IAS duo was, on November 20, 2012, held guilty of making fraudulent and unlawful allotments of lucrative plots in Noida in exchange of underhand money.

Even during the pendency of the case before the CBI court, Neera Yadav managed to have her way with Mulayam who elevated her to the top job of chief secretary in 2003. He also chose to conveniently ignore the fact that she had been voted as among the "three most corrupt IAS officers" by none other than the state’s own IAS Association.

That integrity was of little consequence for Mulayam was already borne out by the fact that even earlier he had appointed one of the "most corrupt IAS officers" Akhand Pratap Singh as the chief secretary. It was another matter that Singh too was shown the door on account of a public interest litigation (PIL) in the apex court and that his disproportionate assets eventually landed him in Tihar Jail.

Significantly, Neera Yadav too could not last long on account of a similar PIL in the apex court which ordered her removal from the top office. Yet, she was given a golden handshake barely a month before her superannuation. The battle in the CBI court continued for the next few years until she was put behind bars.

Kumar, however, managed to hoodwink the law and get his arrest stayed by the high court. And since he was himself bossing over all personnel matters in his capacity as principal secretary (appointments), he ensured that there was no appeal to get the court stay vacated.

The clever bureaucrat would have had his way but for a PIL by former super cop JF Ribeiro, who was in the spotlight for years as the Mumbai police commissioner and Punjab DGP during the peak of the Sikh insurgency. Ribeiro moved the Allahabad High Court under the banner of India Rejuvenation Initiative (IRI) – a voluntary body dedicated to fighting corruption in high places.

Taking serious note of the blatant violation of all norms by the Akhilesh Yadav government in entrusting the posting and appointments of top bureaucrats with a convicted officer, the court not only ordered his removal from the prized office of principal secretary (appointments) but also ensured that Kumar joined his ex-boss and partner in crime Neera Yadav at the Dasna jail.

The petitioner has now sought the dismissal of the IAS officer under the provisions of All India Service Rules.

Just as Kumar was handpicked by Mulayam’s blue-eyed bureaucrat, who called the shots on his behalf and who was known to often bypass or override Akhilesh, there were few other tainted persons who got coveted positions in the Akhilesh regime because of the SP supremo and his close confidant. They included two "prosecuted" IAS officers and two "repatriated" by the Union government to the state on account of their involvement in "shady" deals.

On the contrary, an upright young sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) Durga Shakti Nagpal was slapped with a suspension order because she took on the mining mafia controlled by a Mulayam protégé.

Earlier, Mulayam’s preference for the tainted had come to the fore when he handpicked a highly controversial and poorly qualified Anil Yadav as the State Pubic Service Commission chairman. The infamy that Anil Yadav earned on account of his questionable actions brought even greater embarrassment to the Akhilesh government until a petition was moved before the Allahabad High Court which ordered his removal from the coveted position.

As if that was not enough, Mulayam continued with his indulgence in the appointment of a new Lokayukta. The 76-year-old SP leader could not look beyond a particular "Yadav" retired high court judge for the slot against whom both Allahabad High Court chief justice DY Chandrachud as well as Uttar Pradesh governor Ram Naik had raised serious objections.

Even after the matter was taken to the high court, which ordered the Akhilesh government to send a new panel of names, the one and only name pushed by Mulayam was that of yet another retired "Yadav" judge.

Eventually, in an unprecedented move, Uttar Pradesh’s new Lokayukta was appointed by the Supreme Court.

Akhilesh, understandably, is anxious, lest his father caused him more embarrassment in the run up to the 2017 Assembly elections that will determine the political destiny of the most populous Indian state’s youngest chief minister.

As the saying goes, "Wise men learn from the experience of others, fools from their own." But what to say about those who do not believe in learning even from their own experience?