CS Oommen not present when wife of removed IAS meet EC: Govt

     Raipur, October 29, 2008: Chhattisgarh Government has clarified that the Chief Secretary P Joy Oommen was not present on that spot on Saturday last when the wife of a disgraced IAS officer met the central Election Commission at the Raipur Airport after her husband was removed by the Commission from his post.

     Reacting to reports in a section of media that the Chief Secretary was also present in the Air Port when the wife of the IAS officer met the Commission over her husband’s removal from the post and claimed his innocence, the state government had issued a statement.

     “The Chief Secretary was not present at the Air Port,” the state government said. But it was silent whether the information about the wife of the IAS officer met the Commissioners was true or not.

     On Saturday, the ChhattisgarhTopNews.Com was first to report about the incident but it had never mentioned that the Chief Secretary was also present when the incident took place. However, following that report of the CTN, many media organizations had picked up that news and also mentioned the presence of the Chief Secretary during that meeting.

     In fact, after a day long tour and finally removing three IAS officers from their posts when the Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami and Commissioners Navin B Chawla and S Y Qureshi were on their way to Delhi on Saturday, at the Raipur Airport one of the IAS officer’s wife met them.

     It was not known what was discussed between the wife of the IAS officers and the Commission but sources claimed both might have discussed the Friday night order in which the Commissioner of Bastar and District Collectors of Kanker and Raipur were shifted by the EC.