At his maiden media conference, at Gandhi Bhavan, after joining the Congress from Telugu Desam, MLA A. Revanth Reddy has charged a retired forest officer “who is the brother-in-law of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao” with “falsely claiming himself to be a member of a Scheduled Tribe and securing his job on the basis of it”.
To prove his point, Mr. Reddy produced the reply to an application under RTI, showing that Pakala Harinath Rao was a member of the Mannervarlu tribe listed under the STs.
Mr. Reddy said Mr. Harinath Rao, who retired as Divisional Forest Officer, Social Forestry, at Mahabubnagar in June 2006, was the father in-law of the Chief Minister’s son and IT Minister K. T. Rama Rao.
Mr. Reddy said Mr. Harinath Rao was recruited as a forest range officer on the basis of his “ST status”, which was a false claim, and had served the department for 35 years.
He was drawing a monthly pension of ₹ 50,000 since his retirement.
Mr Revanth Reddy demanded criminal action against the retired official, recovering the entire amount of salary and pension paid to him in the last 47 years, and identifying his post in the department as a backlog post reserved for STs in future recruitment.
The ST department of the Congress would write to the Chief Minister, seeking action against the “illegal job” held by his relative.
If no steps were taken, the matter would be taken to the High Court with a plea to initiate action against not only Mr. Harinath Rao but also the Chief Minister for failure to deliver.
Highlighting that there was no bar on taking action against Mr. Harinath Rao even after retirement, Mr. Reddy referred to a Supreme Court verdict that empowered State government to proceed suo motu in such cases.
The apex court had ruled that misrepresentation was a crime whenever it came to light. He asked the Chief Minister to implement his promise to send his relatives to jail, if found to be wrong.
