Niraj K Pawan, a 2003-batch IAS officer can have a sigh of relief. A single bench of Rajasthan High Court has put stay on any legal proceeding n the case related to alleged irregularities in appointments under National Mental Health Programme.
The state Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) has been investigating the case. Recently, the agency has taken prosecution sanction from the central government. That meant that the agency would have taken Pawan into custody and interrogate about the case of need be.
The court's decision comes in favour of Pawan on his petition to stay on any Punto r action against the charges framed by the ACB against him.
Now what would happen now?
With the single bench of Justice Sudesh Bansal putting stay on any further legal proceedings, Nirja K Pawan is safe till further orders.
Niraj K Pawan is currently serving as divisional commissioner of measly created division – Banswara- a posting a senior IAS officer of secretary rank would not like to serve. But Niraj K Pawan is an active officer and even serving on insignificant posting like divisional commissioner, he has been able to add value to the post by launching cleanliness drive and encroachment free drives in the division.
What is the case of Niraj K Pawan?
The case is related to irregularities in the recruitment of psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, psychiatric social worker, psychiatric nurse, monitoring and evaluation officer, case history assistant and community nurse. There was a special recruitment drive of hiring these health professionals in six districts under national mental health programme in 2014-15. There have been allegations that Niraj K Pawan, who was then additional mission director of national health mission facilitated selection of relatives and non deserving candidates fraudulently. In this case ACB had made five arrests including three former offices of health department. In the investigation, it was found that 56 people were given jobs, out of which 25 people were hired either on the basis of fraud documents or had not fallen in the eligibility criteria. The prosecution request was pending with central government since 2017.
Niraj K Pawan, however in the year 2016, was arrested by the ACB in connection with a bribery scam worth crores in the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). Pawan was allegedly a part of the racket run by a middleman called Ajit Soni who used to get tenders awarded in the Information and Education Department of the Health Ministry in lieu of huge bribes.
These bribes would then be proportionately shared by officers in the department. The scam took place when Niraj K Pawan was posted as the Additional Mission Director in the state's national health mission. Pawan had to spend several months in jail in this case.
Pawan, later as the chairman of Rajasthan Skill and Livelihood Development Corporation (RSLDC) was allegedly involved in corruption demanding money for clearing bill of Rs 1.5 crore. The IAS officer since then has been out of mainstream.
