In a one of its kind move, all the 16 joint secretaries working in the Home Ministry, met Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday to express concern against the suspension of senior IAS officer G.K Dwivedi for the online renewal of Foreign Contributions Regulation Act (FCRA) licence of Islamic preacher Zakir Naik’s NGO.
The officers told the Minister that Mr. Dwivedi was one of the best officers who had spearheaded maximum Digital India projects of the government, including the liberalisation of visa regime, cracking down against unscrupulous NGOs among others.
‘Sent wrong signals’The officers conveyed to Mr. Singh that Mr. Dwivedi’s suspension was extreme and it sent wrong signal to others who wanted to perform.
The Home Minister assured the joint secretaries that he will look into the matter, the sources said. Mr. Dwivedi also met the Home Minister to plead his case.
“We don’t remember the last time when the bureaucracy stood united like this over the suspension of an IAS officer. If a wrong has been done to a colleague today, then it might happen to any of us tomorrow,” said one of the officers who met Mr. Singh.
Mr. Dwivedi, a 1993 batch IAS officer from Andhra Pradesh cadre was suspended along with two undersecretaries and a section officer on September 2 for alleged dereliction of duty.
Another official said that the online system, through which Naik’s NGO-the Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) licence was renewed does not have any provisions for “red-flagged” NGOs and Mr. Dwivedi had written on several occasions to the National Informatics Centre (NIC) to update the system.
Naik’s IRF was sent an inspection notice on August 8 and the automatic renewal of licence was done on August 19.
Home ministry had switched to an online renewal system for FCRA registered NGOs earlier this year and the idea was to reduce the human interface after several complained of bribes sought by officials to renew their licences.
