New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party Rajya Sabha member Subhash Barala’s son Vikas, who is on bail and facing sexual harassment charges in a case that had invited enormous outrage in 2017, was appointed an assistant advocate general for the state on July 18.

Forty five retired IAS officers have written a strong open letter against the decision, addressed to Haryana chief minister Nayab Singh Saini.

The full text of the letter and the list of signatories are below.

§

To
The Chief Minister,
Haryana,
Chandigarh.

We are a group of retired IAS Officers, who served in various capacities for over three decades at Centre and the States.

We are shocked to learn that a stalking case accused, son of BJP Ex-State Chief, one Mr. Vikas Barala has been named as Assistant
Advocate General by your government. We are at loss to understand the logic behind appintment of a person accused of stalking a woman as Asst AG. He will work as the state legal officer, when he is himself on the wrong side of the law in such a serious matter. It seems your government failed to consider the existence of a serious criminal case against Mr Barala or he would not be appointed, being disqualified for such a sensitive post. This appointment also goes against Asmita of Haryana.

By appointing this accused as Asst AG , you have gone against the slogan of Hon PM ‘ बेटी बचाओ'. We condemn this decision of your Government. Your attention is drawn to the 2011 Judgement of the Apex Court, by which the appointment of Mr P J Thomas as head of Central Vigilance Commission was annulled in view of the case pending against him. Similar facts apply in this case of Mr Barala.

We request you to revoke his appointment forthwith, as his continuance in the post is likely to affect the outcome of the case in which he is accused. We further request you to take up with the judiciary to fast-track the trial of the case, as already more than seven years passed.

List of Signatories:
1. P D Vaghela
2. G V Venugopala Sarma
3. PWC Davidar
4. ⁠Ravi Capoor
5. ⁠Atul Chaturvedi
6. ⁠Gauri Trivedi
7. Rakesh Kumar Gupta
8. S C Gupta
9. ⁠Santosh Satapathy
10. ⁠Alok Tandon
11. ⁠ ⁠Mridula Sinha
12. ⁠Dr. K. Shivaji
13. Jayashree Mukherjee
14. ⁠Bijay Kumar
15. ⁠Subhash Chandra
16. Subrat Ratho17. R. S. Shukla
18. I.S.N Prasad
19. ⁠Vandita Sharma
20. ⁠Dr H S Das21. Ved Parkash
22. Alok Sinha
23. Dr E L S N Bala Prasad
24. ⁠Lokesh Jha
25. ⁠Vishwas Mehta
26. ⁠Adv Dr. M Ravi Kanth
27. ⁠P H Kurian
28. S Ramaswamy
29. ⁠Rajiva Sinha
30. ⁠Rajeshwar Tiwari
31. ⁠IP Gautam
32. Shambhu Singh
33. Prabhat Kumar Sarangi
34. S Narsing Rao
35. K P Ramaiah
36. Dr Rajneesh Goel
37. ⁠Shree Kant Singh
38. ⁠MP Singh Punjab
39. ⁠Rajni Sekhri Sibal Haryana
40. M R Kamble
41. Bharat Bhushan Vyas
42. S P Thakur
43. ⁠Dr RC Sagar
44. R R Jowel
45. Pramod K Das

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