Bihar govt suspends arrested IAS officer Sudhir Kumar

A day after the Central IAS officers' association had sought immediate intervention of Bihar and the Union governments into the alleged 'arbitrary functioning' of the police against officers posted in the state, the Bihar government on Friday suspended senior IAS officer Sudhir Kumar for his alleged role in a leakage of question papers.

"The state government has suspended Sudhir Kumar, Chairman of Staff Selection Commission (SSC), Bihar, a week after he was arrested from neighbouring Jharkhand in connection with a leakage of question papers," a General Administration Department official told Millennium Post. "The department has also issued a notification to this effect," the official added.

Supporting the demands of Bihar chapter of IAS Association, the Central IAS officers' association which represents 4,926 officials working across India had asked the Centre for a probe by an independent agency like the CBI in cases involving two civil servants.

The central IAS officers' association had sought immediate help of the Centre to check alleged arbitrariness by Bihar Police in acting against civil servants.

The move comes following alleged wrongful arrest of two officers — Jitendra Gupta and Sudhir Kumar — of Indian Administrative Service (IAS) working under Bihar government.

Commenting on the issue, Sanjay Bhoosreddy, Secretary of the central IAS association, said, "There is a need to check the arbitrary behaviour of some of the policemen working under Bihar Police. It appears that the police are acting arbitrarily. We want a thorough probe in the cases involving the two IAS officers by an independent agency."

Reacting to the demands of IAS association, JD(U)'s spokesperson Neeraj Kumar said, "CBI is a central agency and works under the influence of Central government. The Bihar Police is much competent to handle such investigations. If the case is transferred to CBI, it would bite the dust only because it is happening in the case of Siwan journalist Rajdev Ranjan and others."

"It was the Bihar Police who registered the case in few days only, but the CBI is yet to frame charges against anyone. I would suggest IAS Association trust the state police and justice would be done in Sudhir Kumar case too," the senior JD(U) leader said.