The superintendent of jail No. 4 in the Tihar Central Jail, S.C. Bharadwaj, who was caught entertaining sacked Commonwealth Games Organising Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi in his office by an inspecting trial court judge Brijesh Kumar Garg on Thursday, had actually been biding his time in the prison as his transfer had been approved by the Director-General (Prisons) about a fortnight prior to the incident.
Sources said the transfer orders for Mr. Bharadwaj, who is a DANICS cadre officer, had been issued four months ago. He was to leave for the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
“The orders are usually issued for batches of officers. But in his case, the transfer was approved only in mid-June. The authorities retained him till the month-end so that he could get his increment before leaving. He was finally relieved from his duty on July 1,” said a Jail official.
Since Mr. Bharadwaj, who had also been given a farewell about a week ago following his nearly two-and-a-half year stay in the jail, was no longer on the rolls of the Tihar Jail, the sources said, any action against him on the basis of the report filed by Mr. Garg with the Districts and Sessions Judge could now only be taken by the Union Ministry of Home.
However, Additional Director-General of the Tihar Jail R.N. Sharma has directed the Vigilance in-Charge to probe the incident and submit a report within 48 hours. “The report was about Jail No. 4 and we are probing the matter. It is very unfortunate,” he said.
The Tihar Jail authorities would also be filing a detailed report on the incident with the Home Department of the Delhi Government, which is headed by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit.
Mr. Bharadwaj had earlier served as Sub-Divisional Magistrate of Punjabi Bagh and also worked in a senior position in the VAT Department.
In his report, Mr. Garg had stated that during an inspection in the Tihar Jail on June 30, he had found Mr. Kalmadi having tea and snacks in the jail superintendent's office. The judge noted that he was “surprised to see Kalmadi, who is in judicial custody in connection with the Time-Scoring-Result contract scam, sitting with jail superintendent Bharadwaj and enjoying tea/coffee and biscuits/namkeen.”
He also wrote that he was told that Mr. Kalmadi was waiting for a van to take him to hospital.
