New Delhi, What happens to a government officer when, after spending years enforcing the law and taking action against defaulting employers, he himself becomes an accused in a CBI trap case?
For senior civil servant Pankaj, the answer was a legal battle lasting more than 13 years. His recently published book, My Lady in Black: Learning the Laws to Fight the Flaws, narrates this journey: from being an enforcement officer in the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation , to an accused in a CBI case and finally to his acquittal by the designated court in 2019. The 382-page book, published by Chennai-based PenManush, is a semi-autobiographical account which also deals with legal and procedural issues arising from a prolonged vigilance and prosecution case. His posting in Varanasi in 2005 brought him face to face with what he describes as some of the most glaring cases of exploitation in the carpet industry. After joining in Jamshedpur on December 28, 2005, he encountered another category of provident fund defaulters.
He is presently posted in New Delhi as Additional Central Provident Fund Commissioner , EPFO. During his postings in Bihar, Northeast, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, Pankaj worked on enforcing provident fund laws for factory workers, daily wage labourers, weavers and other employees. One such case involved a highly reputed professional, an IIT-IIM alumnus, who was associated with management education and was a visiting faculty/lecturer at different management institutes.
“An allegation against a government officer can affect not just his career but also his family and personal life, even when the final result of the case is an acquittal,” Pankaj says. Some of the establishments against whom action was taken, he says, were powerful and difficult to deal with. “Barely six months of being in Varanasi, I began to feel the heat,” he writes in the book. He says that what he considered normal professional action sometimes resulted in pressure from outside and ultimately in his transfer to Jamshedpur.
The dues were eventually paid, and he was released from the civil prison only after payment was made. The book was launched recently at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. The episode took an unusual turn when the employer visited the EPFO office. Pankaj, who was then the Commissioner, had the person detained in a civil prison created inside one of the office rooms. The room was formally declared as a civil prison for the purpose. It was not a criminal arrest, but an action under the provisions of the provident fund law for recovery of the statutory dues. The well-known academic and management professional, who perhaps did not expect such an action in an EPFO office, was then explained the legal position and the consequences of continued non-payment. But within a few months, Pankaj himself became the accused. He was sent to Central Jail in Ranchi and remained there for about two months. What followed was a long legal battle involving repeated hearings, adjournments, examination of witnesses and several legal and departmental complications. The case also changed the life of his wife, Sweta Sinha. She subsequently studied law and became a practising lawyer, eventually taking an active role in understanding the case and fighting the long legal battle. For the family, the acquittal was a moment of relief, but it came after more than a decade of uncertainty and the social stigma attached to a corruption allegation. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
On June 22, 2006, he was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation officials in a trap case which he describes in the book as false and fabricated. The case continued for more than 13 years before the special CBI court acquitted him on November 30, 2019. The book therefore also looks at the human side of a vigilance or corruption case – something which is generally missing when such cases are discussed only through files, chargesheets and court orders.
But, according to the book, he was also a provident fund defaulter and had not deposited the statutory dues relating to his employees despite repeated notices. A Physics graduate and an MBA in Finance, Sweta, according to the author, became frustrated with the manner in which the case was progressing and felt that she needed to understand the law herself. The book’s title, “My Lady in Black,” refers to the author’s wife Sweta.
