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IAS officer demands apology from Samal

HYDERABAD: K. Ratna Prabha, Principal Secretary, Public Enterprises, has demanded an apology from R. C. Samal, former Vigilance Commissioner, within ten days for dubbing her, along with other IAS officers, corrupt.

Reacting two months after Mr. Samal’s statement, she said she would file a defamation case and take the issue to its logical end if the retired official did not respond. It is learnt that a few other IAS officers, including V. K. Agarwal and P. Dayachari, whose names also figured in the statement are also planning to seek legal action.

Ms. Ratna Prabha addressed a press conference here on Thursday in the wake of the General Administration Department issuing clean chit to her on her application under the Right to Information Act asking whether she faced any corruption charges as alleged by Mr. Samal. The GAD stated that no complaint of corruption or any inquiry report was pending with the Government as on date. She said that until she received this information, she underwent mental agony as Mr. Samal described her as being “guilty of corruption, criminal misconduct and serious violation of conduct rules”. When it was pointed out that a committee headed by Chief Secretary J. Harinarayan was already going into Mr. Samal’s statement, Ms. Ratna Prabha said “that is a general inquiry”.

The IAS officer said she belonged to the Karnataka cadre but governments, Ministers and senior officials appreciated her work wherever she served. As development commissioner, Visakhapatnam SEZ, she created 5,000 jobs. If Mr. Samal was a “tiger” as he described himself, he would have acted when he was in office instead of issuing statements after retirement.

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