Special news. Nainital
Big news has come out from the administrative corridor of Uttarakhand. Here, the Nainital bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) has taken a tough stand in the matter of tampering with the Annual Work Appraisal Report (ACR) of senior state IFS officer Sanjeev Chaturvedi, who raised his voice against corruption. The bench of CAT judicial member Justice Rajveer Singh Verma has issued a personally named notice to Principal Secretary (Forest) RK Sudhanshu in this case. Along with this, ex-officio notice has also been given to the Chief Secretary and Chief Conservator of Forests of the state, seeking their reply within 6 weeks. The next hearing of the case has been fixed for August 19.
Sanjeev Chaturvedi, currently director of Uttarakhand Forestry Training Academy (Haldwani), alleges that for the financial year 2024-25, the reporting and reviewing authorities had given him an excellent grading of 9.74 in view of his excellent works. His integrity was considered irrefutable and he was considered extremely hard-working and capable.
He had made innovations like setting up the state’s first Buronsh garden in Munsiyari and AI technology in forest management. But, Principal Secretary RK Sudhanshu maliciously reduced this grading to 9.30 without any solid reason. A big technical question has also been raised in the petition that when the level-17 officer (Chief Conservator of Forests) as the review officer had given this grading, then who gave the level-15 officer (RK Sudhanshu) the right to reduce it?
Chaturvedi had attacked the big corruption syndicate:
Chaturvedi has clearly stated in his petition that he is being targeted because of several big scams exposed by him in the last one year. In December 2024, he exposed a scam worth crores in the construction of Munsiyari Eco Hut and recommended a CBI and ED investigation. After this, in June 2025, the disappearance of more than 7000 border pillars from Mussoorie Forest Division and the theft of property worth crores of rupees of the Forest Officer was exposed.
Not only this, he had also exposed the huge scam of purchasing saplings at 30 to 40 times higher rates in Miyawaki plantation in Dehradun and Mussoorie forest divisions, due to which the then Chief Conservator of Forests had to step down. According to the rules, the Chief Secretary had to resolve his complaint within 2 months, but from December 8 till now, he too was being harassed, after which CAT had to intervene.
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