Aravalli Tree Felling Row: Senior IAS man putting pressure, behaving badly with us, say IFS officers

Renjitha had also marked a copy of the complaint to her senior officers and Chief Secretary, D S Dhesi. “Yes, we have received a complaint from Renjitha. We shall examine it. At the moment, we can’t say about the merits of the allegations. We shall seek ACS’s comments before moving ahead into the matter. We have not received the complaints from other officers as yet,” Dhesi told The Indian Express.

The issue of Renjitha’s complaint relates to June 22 orders issued by Gulati permitting axing of over 6,000 mesquite trees, referred to as shrubs by ACS (Forests), on the 52-acre plot in Aravalli area of Faridabad district, owned by Bharti Realty Ltd. The order had led to disquiet among Haryana forest officials.

An affidavit in this connection had to be filed on the government’s behalf in the case pending before the National Green Tribunal (NGT).

Renjitha had refused to file the affidavit.

“I was being pressurised by the Administrative Secretary (Gulati) for issues relating to which the PCCF, who is the HoD and technical head of the forest department, had clearly informed the Administrative Secretary . That action (filing of the affidavit) was due from their (Gulati) office as only they were privy to the decisions taken in that matter. There was no reason for the abuse handed out to me and the issue should have been resolved between the Administrative Secretary and the PCCF without insulting juniors,” said Renjitha in her complaint.
“Words like ‘bloody fool’ and ‘crooked’ were used by Gulati over the phone. I was told that I would not be spared and would be made to pay. Impartial and unbiased discharge of duty cannot be ensured in such circumstances,” she alleged in the
letter.

In his complaint, Vinod Kumar, Conservator of Forests (Wildlife), Gurugram, has blamed the ACS for “inflicting mental harassment and pressurising tactics”.

“Sh Sunil Gulati, ACS Forests rang me up on my mobile from his office landline number …and started blasting me on the issue of report submitted by the department on ‘status of areas notified under Sec 4 and/or 5, PLPLA 1900 as on 25-10-1980’ to ACS (Forests). He (Gulati) said that all the areas which were marked as green wash on Survey of India Toposheet should have been considered as forests and rest of the area marked as open/dense scrub or scattered wooded trees etc. should be taken as non-forests… Such scrub forests are valid forest type as per Champion and Seth forest classification and forest type maps have been prepared by the Forest Survey of India, Dehradun as per this classification which show tropical dry deciduous forests and dry deciduous scrub in PLPA areas of Faridabad. With this factual details it will not be possible to mark any PLPA area as non-forests in Faridabad ,” said Kumar in the letter written on June 23.

Sources said that the complaints of Garg and Rajvanshi also relate to “behavioural” issues, which have been forwarded to the government by the PCCF. Both Garg and Rajvanshi refused to comment on the matter.
When contacted and asked about the allegations against him, Gulati said: “The allegations of abusive language are baseless. I had asked her to submit the affidavit before the NGT because she was posted near New Delhi,” Gulati said.

Claiming that a group of officers was trying to stall works of the department to the reasons best known to them, Gulati added, “I am concerned why proper plantation was not done during all these years.”

“Vinod Kumar handles our GIS (geographic information system). I had asked him to see the map of Survey of India and tell what was the situation in 1980. He said before all (officers) that ‘I am not competent to do this, I can’t read the map’. If somebody doesn’t do the job, then I have to tell him or her to do the job. A section of officers are ganging up because for long they have taken a stand that they won’t allow the department to work,” he said.