New Delhi (10.07.2021): When a retired civil servant makes an allegation against another retired civil servant, what's one is supposed to make out or understand? Is it a case of a festering wound or a genuine case of public-spiritedness? Or is it a case of simple mud-slinging?

A lot of civil servants may or may not be aghast at the allegations made by former Chief Commissioner of Income Tax D P Kar (IRS:1973), who retired over a decade ago, against former Revenue Secretary ABP Pandey's (Retd IAS:1985:MH), who retired in March 2021.

The problem with Kar's allegations, contained in a letter to PM Narendra Modi, is that, in the process of casting aspersions on Pandey's alleged role in the initially problematic GST and IT portals, he has become too personal by alleging things against his family. Indianmandarins archival data show that Kar has been targeting Pandey for some time now.

What further stretches the credibility of Kar's allegations is that, apart from holding Pandey personally responsible for the teething problems of the new portals, he has taken a potshot at Infosys, a new-age Indian company whose commitment to good business practices and ethical conduct is appreciated all over the world, let alone India.

When the new tax portals were causing nightmares to customers, readers may recall that Indianmandarins has highlighted the fact that the genesis of the problems plaguing the new portals lay in the failure of CBDT acting like a team that resulted in the absence of operational inputs from the field staff. Since a Program's output is directly linked to the input, hence the Infosys program for the new portals, which missed on key inputs from the whos who in CBDT. Insiders say that for the failures of IT portal the then Chairman of CBDT, the then head of 'Systems' in CBDT, and others also share the accountability proportionate to their role, responsibility, and jurisdiction.

Unfortunately, Kar who knows how the system functions, ignored his own intimate knowledge of the system and has gone on a trajectory to seek action against Pandey and his family as well as Infosys.

Could Kar's allegation be seen as motivated by his indulgence in the politics of a section of VHP leaders? It is known that, after his retirement from the service, Kar had become Odisha VHP president and is considered close to Pravin Togadia. Kar's allegations and demand for investigation against former Revenue Secretary ABP Pandey may be based on facts yet sparing other senior authorities in CBDT and the ministry of finance from their accountability casts a shadow on Kar's intent. 

(By MK Shukla)