Letter controversy: UP govt suspends senior IAS officer

A day after his transfer, senior IAS officer Sarvesh Chandra Mishra was on Sunday suspended and a departmental probe initiated against him over a controversial letter convening a meeting to discuss "reconstruction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya on lines of SomnathTemple."

Mishra, a 1997-batch officer, was the Home Secretary of Uttar Pradesh before he was shunted out on Saturday.

"Secretary (Home) Mishra mentioned a wrong and extremely misleading subject on a disputed issue in the letter regarding a meeting to be chaired by the Principal Secretary (Home) on October 14, and signed it," an official statement said.

Mishra's act created confusion and gave a completely wrong message among the people, the statement said.

"It has been decided to suspend Mishra, an IAS officer of 1997 batch, with immediate effect and initiate a departmental inquiry against him," it said, adding that during suspension period, Mishra will remain attached with the Revenue Board.

The government had transferred Mishra and suspended section officer of the home department, Prem Kumar Pandey, in wake of the controversial letter.

A controversy had erupted over a communique by the state Home Secretary convening a meeting to discuss "reconstruction of RamTemple in Ayodhya on the lines of SomnathTemple," with a red-faced SP government calling it an "error" and promising action against the guilty.

Principal Secretary (Home) R M Srivastava had to apologise for the "error" and take responsibility for the folly of "junior level" officials.

"There are errors in the letter issued on October 9 by the department for convening the meeting and parts of intelligence input on the VHP sponsored Sankalp Diwas on October 18, which should not have been made public, got mentioned in it," Srivastava had said at a press meet.

"The language used in the letter is not correct," he had said.