Day after, questions on order’s legality

A day after Mohammad Shayin was removed as UT deputy commissioner (DC) and repatriated to his home state of Haryana, questions are being raised over the legality of the administrator’s order issued by the adviser.

The order, signed by the adviser, simply states that the administrator is “pleased to repatriate” Shayin and gives the additional charge for now to special secretary (home) SB Deepak Kumar. Sources said the order came after the adviser went to the Punjab governor-cum-UT administrator’s residence on Tuesday evening, along with senior IAS officer and UT agriculture secretary K Narasimha with whom Shayin had allegedly got into a physical altercation earlier that day.

Shayin, when contacted, said though he had “happily” joined back in Haryana and taken leave for now awaiting posting, the repatriation order had not come from the ministry of home affairs (MHA) “as should have been the case”.

The order is “not right”, he underlined, adding to his Tuesday night contention that MHA had not been “taken into confidence”. The adviser neither took calls nor replied to messages on the issue.

Sources in the administration told HT that there had earlier been such an order “without concurrence of the MHA” in the case of G Vajralingam, a Punjab-cadre IAS officer, when he had been repatriated after merely a year as UT finance secretary in 1999.
Sources said that the MHA had objected to the order then.

“The MHA had issued a circular that such orders should not be repeated,” Shayin too said.

He also said he had offered that he be repatriated after some political leaders had “gone around asking for my removal”. Delegations of BJP leaders had approached the Centre for Shayin’s removal over his “controversial” manner of work.