In the latest episode of friction between Inspector General of Police (former Deputy Inspector General Prisons) Roopa and ex-DIG Prisons HN Satyanarayana Rao, Roopa has written a letter protesting the Karnataka IPS Association’s decision to give Satyanarayana Rao an honourable farewell.
The IPS (Karnataka) Association has organised a farewell function to honour six IPS officers who recently retired, including Satyanarayana, on Wednesday evening.
In her letter, Roopa has said, “I hereby register my protest to giving farewell to HNS RAO, not for personal reasons but for the general cause of the IPS as such. Here was a man who wanted to scuttle powers and functions of IPS Cadre post.”
She later adds, “On one hand we keep saying in our IPS forums, that we should protect our interests, show leadership etc. On the other hand he is being felicitated even with his ANTI-IPS stand.”
Roopa, who had blown the lid off an alleged system where VIP prisoners like VK Sasikala used to get special treatment at the Parappana Agrahara jail, was sued for defamation by her immediate senior Satyanarayana for Rs 20 crore recently.
The then DIG Prisons’ allegation that Sasikala bribed her way into gaming the system, has angered her supervising officer Satyanarayana Rao. He had termed her nine-point-report to the government as “false”, and “baseless”.
Soon after the controversy broke, she was shunted out of her position and was transferred to traffic and road safety department, while Satyanarayana was allowed to retire in his position with some days left in his tenure.
You can read the full letter here:
I hereby register my protest to giving farewell to HNS RAO , not for personal reasons but for the general cause of the IPS as such. Here was a man who wanted to scuttle powers and functions of IPS Cadre post.
Even though the organisational chart said that DIG Cadre post will report to the head , ie DG/IG Prisons, he asked me to report to AIG Prisons. He asked me to route files through AIG Prisons. And who is this AIG Prisons? He is a person who joined prison department in a post equivalent to PSI in 1983. Have you ever seen a PSI in our department rise to the post of even SP?
Prison officials used all mean methods to get promoted as DIG and then got a post created as AIG , claiming that AIG is above DIG. And how many years did the person serve as DIG Prisons before becoming AIG Prisons? Only 3 years ! Well, even IPS require minimum 4 years to get promoted after becoming DIG. And to such a post, HNS Rao wanted IPS Cadre post to report .
When I submitted to him that he is undermining the authority of IPS CADRE POST, my words fell on deaf ears. My exact conversation with him was like this-- " Sir, you are an IPS, if you don't protect our interest, who will? Today, I am here. Tomorrow someone else would be there. These days batches are very big with 10 to 11 IPS coming every year to Cadre. Why do you want them to suffer? If I report to the Prisons AIG , it will be a precedent. And where on earth would an IPS report to a departmental person?
Even IAS, who are posted in any department as director or additional director will only report to the IAS boss and not the departmental man" . However, none of these he considered for reasons best known to him.On one hand we keep saying in our IPS forums, that we should protect our interests, show leadership etc . On the other hand he is being felicitated even with his ANTI-IPS stand.The mental agony that I personally went through those days cannot be explained in words. But I'm not registering my protest for what pain he caused personally. I'm only putting forth before you, the man who acted against interests of our service, the man who never stood for the IPS colleague posted under him.