Former Home Ministry official RVS Mani, who had filed two contradictory affidavits in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case in 2009, has sought voluntary retirement from the service and his lawyer said he was doing so following "harassment".
Mani (55), who is an Under Secretary in the Urban Development Ministry and has five more years in service, wrote to Ministry's Secretary Sudhir Krishna on Monday seeking voluntary retirement. He wants to be relieved at the earliest.
The first affidavit filed by Mani in Gujarat High Court in August 2009 said that Ishrat and the three men killed with her were LeT operatives, and objected to a probe by the CBI. The second affidavit, filed in September in the same court, said that intelligence inputs on the four victims of the encounter did not constitute conclusive proof, and that the Home Ministry was in favour of a CBI probe.
Mani's lawyer K B Singh said the official had appeared before the CBI for questioning in Ahmedabad on June 13 in connection with the filing of the two affidavits in the fake encounter case in 2009 when he was serving in the Home Ministry.
"Ever since his appearance before CBI, Mani's superiors have started harassing him on one or the other pretext allegedly finding fault in his current work," Singh said. "They started finding fault in his work. He has been harassed since June 13.
Pressure is mounted on him. He has been asked to explain one by one in those cases which he had processed recently in this Ministry (Urban Development)," Singh said. However, in his letter to the Urban Development Secretary seeking voluntary retirement, Mani did not mention about any harassment from his superiors.
"It has been extremely enriching experience to be working with this department and I would always cherish my memories of my service," Mani wrote in his letter. The lawyer said since June 13, Mani was served with a memo finding fault in his work and he thought that six more such memos would be served on him.
Singh said Mani did not come under the pressure of CBI during the questioning. The CBI wanted to know the reasons behind the two contradictory affidavits filed by him on behalf of the Home Ministry, the lawyer said. "Mani stood by the affidavits he had filed.
The affidavits were filed after it was approved by the Ministry of Law. The second affidavit was later vetted by the Law Ministry," he said. Mani had also written a letter to his seniors in July saying that he was being pressured by a senior officer of the Special Investigation Team (SIT), to sign a statement saying that the first affidavit in the Ishrat case had been drafted by two IB officers.
The SIT, appointed by the Gujarat High Court, is assisting the CBI in the investigations into the 2004 alleged fake encounter case.
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