Umashankar I.A.S, a victim of Crony Capitalism:

C. Umashankar IAS, an honest and efficient officer joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1990. He started his journey as an assistant collector in 1992 in Mayiladuthurai, Nagapattinam district in Tamil Nadu.

In his first posting only he questioned irregularities in cyclone relief work taking place in the area and result was, he promptly transferred to Seiyar, Thiruvannamalai district. I guess, this is indeed, part of the vicissitudes in the professional life of an honest official.

When Umashankar was an additional collector in Madurai between February 1995 and October 1995, he filed corruption cases against one AIADMK minister in the “cremation ground shed” case. Thanks to this he was transferred and appointed as an additional director of the South Asian Federation Games in October 1995.

The 1996 assembly election in Tamil Nadu resulted in regime change in Tamil Nadu and the DMK formed the next government. In June 1996, Umashankar was appointed as the Joint Vigilance Commissioner. He recommended the DMK government to take action against the former chief minister and former ministers in the AIADMK government who were connected to various corruption cases.

He was disappointed with the government's response and sought to be relieved from the position. Umashankar was appointed as district collector of Thiruvellur district in February 1999. During this period he implemented e-governance project in Thiruvellur and Thiruvellur is the first e-governance district in Tamilnadu. This project got an international attention. Umashankar in Tamil Nadu, Sonal Misra in Gujarat and Sanjay Saju in Andra Pradesh are pioneers in e-governance.

Umashankar groomed himself as an IT and e-governance specialist and he brought many important discussions in e-governance's platform. He strongly argued that developing countries like India should adopt Free Software in e-governance implementation and other government funded projects. In his speech in the National Conference on Free Software which was held in Bangalore on March 20&21, 2010 he reiterated the above points which inspired the audience and injected into them the national importance of using Free Software in government funded project and embracing open standards in such projects.

He continued as Thiruvarur collector in June 2001. In 2001 assembly elections the ADMK was voted back to power and Umashankar was transferred as Commissioner of Disciplinary Proceedings to Selam. It was a sort of punishment post.

Between 2001 and 2006, when he was working as commissioner of Disciplinary Proceedings he sharply observed what is happening in IT and e-governance and made necessary contribution as well as intervention to his capacity. One incident is worth quoting now. On April 27 2005, Umashankar wrote an e-mail to the CEO of NISG(National Institute of Smart Government), who is also an IAS officer, the subject line is 'Are you corrupt?'. The allegation that Umashankar levelled against CEO was that when the latter was the principal secretary of Communication and IT,he granted many projects to one particular corporation. Umashankar alleged that there could be an unlawful connection between CEO and the particular corporation and asked him to reply in 7 days. This IAS replied to that by saying that it's unacceptable to level such allegation against an IAS by another fellow IAS officer. Then this IAS was working in World Bank, Washington DC, USA in deputation. In the reply he also mentioned another important information about Umashankar that when Umashankar worked as deputy collector in Trichy between July 1994 and January 1995, he deposited the money that was allocated for ( DRDA - District Rural Development Agency) in the bank where his younger brother was working. This reply looks like 'Are you Mr. Perfect?'. Umashankar replied to Srivasta that he did not deposit the money in the bank where his younger brother is working. He stated that his brother was working in Trichy SBI and the money is deposited in Chennai SBI and he added that he deposited the money in Chennai SBI since the bank offered more interest i.e. between 11.5% and 13%. This deposit allegation against Umashankar was taken in 2004 by the ADMK government. We have already seen the relation between the ADMK and Umashankar. In the same reply Umashankar mentioned that Srivasta was trying to divert the allegation against Satyanarayan by replying something else and he questioned that when the benefits of e-governance reaches widows, pensioners, the poor and socially marginalized scheduled caste and scheduled tribes? If corruption is tolerated in e-governance, the benefits of e-governance reaching such people will be further delayed.


In May 2006, the DMK came back to power in Tamil Nadu. Umashankar's fame and experience in IT helped him in being appointed as the MD of ELCOT (Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu). He burned his mid night oil in executing important tasks. He worked as a software engineer by extending working hours and sometimes stayed in office. He proved that the government can save between 10% and 20% money when it goes for Free Software such as GNU/Linux and Open Office instead of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. He not only recommended Free Software to the government employees but also organized the training for them in Free Software. Besides that he developed a model of an ATM (Automatic Teller Machine) which runs on Free Software coasts only 1.5 lakhs where the proprietary alternative costs between 6 and 7 lakhs. Umashankar introduced ORCA,a Free Software screen reader to the visually challenged people where the proprietary alternative is Rs.20,000/= and more. He organized a training class for such people by Krishnakant Mane, a visually challenged person working for TIFR( TATA Institute of Fundamental Research – Mumbai).

An honest officer and people in government indulged in rampant corruption, contradiction starts here! Honesty is the most hated word for the bourgeois politicians. For probing financial irregularities while in ELCOT and for condemning and recommending actions against the Arasu cable for it's unlawful actions, Umashankar has been taken revenge by the capitalist-political nexus.

ELCOT is a government of Tamil Nadu enterprise before Umashankar has been appointed as an MD, New Era Technologies (NET) of Thiagaraja S Chettiar and ELCOT jointly started a company called ELNET Technologies Ltd (ETL). ELCOT and NET owned 26% and 24% stack respectively the rest owned by the public. In 2004 ETL started a company called ETL Infrastructure. ETL Infrastructure is an 100% subsidiary company of ETL. Thiagaraja S Chettiar and his wife Unnamalai Thiagaraja were the chairman and the MD of ETL Infrastructure respectively.   ETL Infrastructure availed a huge sum of loan by showing the ETL property. ETL Infrastructure owned 1,800,000 square feet land at Pallikarunai worth Rs.700 Cr. Umashankar wondered how ETL lost the control over a company, which started with the fund of ETL and availing huge loan in ETL's name. On July 28 2008, he went to ETL Infrastructure office at Tharamani in searching the documents related to ETL and ETL Infrastructure and retuned without success. As per regulations the MD of ELCOT would be the Chairman of ETL. Umashankar as the Chairman of ETL circulated a special resolution through ETL company secretary in ETL's Annual General Body Meeting on 30th July 2008, to remove Unnamalai Thiagarajan from the MD post. Thanks to that Umashankar was removed from ELCOT by the Tamil Nadu government.

Umashankar was appointed as an MD of Arasu cable on October 30 2008. He condemned the Sumangali Cable Vision's(SCV – a part of Sun Network) unlawful actions against the Arasu cable. In December 2008, He wrote a detailed letter to the office of Tamilnadu Chief minister and the Inspector General of Tamilnadu about Sumangali cable unlawful action and the dying necessary to take action against Sumangali TV. It's alleged that to interrupt Arasu cable telecasting, the cables of Arasu cable were cut by unidentified persons all over the state as per Sumangali's direction. It completely paralyzed the Arasu cable's telecasting. On January 7, 2009, Umashankar wrote to Karunanidhi that the only way to save Arasu cable is to nationalize the Sumangali cable. In order to divert this issue the Tamilnadu government gave a memo to Umashankar which alleged that Umashankar misused his power by granting some benefits to a company called Tessolve through his wife who was then working for Tessolve. Umashankar refuted this allegation with proper explanation. He said that 2.5 acre land allotted to Tessolve in Madurai IT park has been allotted to the company after the cabinet approval on September 28 2008. In October 2008, when Tessolve approached the TIIC (Tamil Nadu Industrial Investment Corporation) for a loan, he rightly intimated the government about his wife's employment with the concerned company and the loan was rejected . Such politically motivated actions against Umashankar had an adverse impact on his promotions. He was transferred as Commissioner of Small Savings on January 23 2009.

On May 6, 2010, government started an inquiry against Umashankar without filling any case. On June 6, 2010, Umashankar filed an affidavit in Madras high court under the article 226 of constitution of India, challenging the enquiry. In the affidavit he mentioned that it's unconstitutional to enquire an IAS by an officer in the rank of DSP without registering a case. The court's judgement came in favour of Umashankar on June 16, 2010.

We've to wait and see the cases that will be filled against Umashankar and to see how the corrupted politician and the business class in forming an unholy alliance and the public and media's on this issue.

Same government rejected action against the district collector and the police commissioner and other officials connected with Tirunelveli massacre in which 17 people were killed( and 11 of them were Dalits) by stating shamelessly that if the government take action against the officials “people belonging to the backward classes” would object to it. but now govt is taking action against an IAS officer by alleging that he produced fake community certificate. Umashankar says  About the charge that he produced a fake caste certificate to join IAS, he said while his mother was Christian, his father was Hindu. "All my 11 siblings have all along remained Hindus. But my mother named me Ashok and got it recorded in my SSLC book that I was a Christian Pallar. My father was agitated over that and there used to be a lot of violence at home. Finally, when I was doing my final year in college, my father got me officially converted to Hinduism, changed my name to Umashankar and also got it notified in the government gazette."

He said the community certificate was verified by state government officials twice, based on a request from the Union Public Service Commission in 1990. On the government's instruction, the Tirunelveli collector had once again summoned him for yet another inquiry about the community certificate, he said, adding that the state government had no locus standi to initiate such an inquiry when his employer was the UPSC or the central government. "Let me make it clear now. For the past two years, I am a practising Christian. However, I have not changed my religion legally."

He remained suspended for 43 days and after that he joined as MD, TNSIC (Tamilnadu Small Industries Corporation). Actually his suspension seems to be a shock treatment o the IAS and IPS officials in the state acting not as per the will of powerful people in government.

The problem for govt was not that Umashankar produced fake community certificate, the real problem was that Umashankar may unearth many fraudulence in ELCOT and other areas which may unearth nexus between the bourgeoisie politicians and the business men.

Why Tamil Nadu suspended this IAS officer

C Umashankar, a 1990 batch Indian Administrative Service officer from Tamil Nadu, has been acclaimed for his honesty. This did not always endear the 46-year-old bureaucrat to the powers that be. Fifteen years ago, he made the news when he pointed out the cremation shed scandal in Madurai [ Images ].

In 2008 he was the managing director of the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu when its subsidiary, ETL Infrastructure, worth Rs 700 crore (Rs 7 billion) went missing! For raising questions over this shocking episode, he was transferred before he could get to the bottom of that one.

A year later he was the MD of the government-owned Arasu Cable Corporation, which was in direct competition with the Sumangali CableVision, owned by the politically powerful Maran family, when he alleged that Arasu's cables were being cut by the latter.
He proposed the nationalisation of Sumangali, after which he was transferred out from his post.

But this time, more action was to follow. On July 21, 2010, he was suspended by the Tamil Nadu government -- for having submitted a false community certificate when he joined the IAS 20 years ago.The civil servant, who was reinstated by the Tamil Nadu government in the first week of September, spoke at length to Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar in Chennai while still under suspension.

While some people support you as an honest officer being victimised, others support you because a Dalit officer is being victimised. How do you see yourself?

Both. The elite and the intellectuals including the Makkal Sakthi Katchi are supporting me as an honest officer. The poor Dalit people are supporting me because I am a Dalit. They are agitating spontaneously on my behalf.

What is the controversy over your caste certificate?

They say I am a Christian and that I have taken a caste certificate as a Dalit Hindu.
My father Chellakani Sadayandi was a Dalit Hindu and my mother Suganthi Santhabai Victoria was a Christian.
We are 12 children of whom 11 children are shown as Hindus. My mother admitted me to the Sarah Tucker School for primary education where the school authorities made the entry as Christian, judging from my mother's faith.

When my father became aware of this in 1984, before I graduated, he took me to a Hindu mutt and got me converted. He got it notified this through the government gazette. This is the laid down procedure in law. Then he got my community certificate.
We had two native villages, Mettupatti and Sathirakondan. Originally both came under Sankarankoil taluka but subsequently new talukas were created and that also brought about a change.
The government attempts to distort it by saying that I have taken a false nativity certificate. My father and I had three options before us for obtaining the community certificate: Palayamkottai where I studied; Sankarankoil (native 1); or Mettupatti (native 2).

My nativity cannot change my caste status. The question they have raised is on my caste and religion. Dalit Sadayandi Chellakani's son cannot be a forward caste. There are 10 million Dalit people in Tamil Nadu who belong to my subcaste (Devandra Vellalar). They are up against the government due to my suspension.
The message is very clear -- my community considers me a jewel in their crown.
What happened in the Arasu Cable-Sumangali matter that got you in so much trouble?
They were cutting the optic fibre cables of the Arasu Cable Corporation. My officials lodged complaints and FIRs (First Information Reports) with the police but they did not take any action.
Then I sent a series of reports to the government seeking high level intervention to protect government property, yet no action was taken.
On January 5, 2009, I went to Coimbatore to safeguard the government company's cables. We went on a night patrol along with the press people and our cable operators to highlight the problem.

Till then the police had not filed a single FIR. All the complaints which gave rise to cognisable offences were entered and kept in the community service register of the respective police stations. After I went there the Coimbatore commissioner of police registered five FIRs but not under the Destruction of Public Property Act.
No follow-up action was taken. The culprits were not arrested, nor did the cable cutting stop. Rather, it worsened, a week after my visit.

Arasu Cable people caught two criminals cutting the optic fibre cables red-handed and handed them over to the police. They let them go. The commissioner was helpless.

On January 7, 2009, I sent a proposal to the state government to nationalise Sumangali Cable Vision, terming it a rowdy company.

What happened as a result of your action?

On January 22, 2009, I informed the cable operators during a meeting at Vellore at which the press was also present that Sumangali Cable Vision would be nationalised. The next day I was transferred out at 11 am.
On the subsequent day Arasu Cable Corporation had run into losses as its optic fibre backbone cables were completely destroyed.
A mutual friend attempted to negotiate between Dayanidhi Maran [ Images ] (whose family owns Sumangali Cable Vision; he is now India's [ Images ] textiles minister) and me, offering something to me in return (in return for stopping his pro-active work). I refused.
This happened at Coimbatore airport, just before my departure after the cable inspection.

Was the story similar at ELCOT?

I was heading the implementation team to promote nine information technology special economic zones in Tamil Nadu. I was also the chief architect (technical) for four extremely important e-governance packages.
I was spearheading a campaign to promote free software in government which has the potential to save Rs 5,000 crores (Rs 50 billion) every year to India.

ETL Infrastructure Limited was a Rs 700 crore IT SEZ located in Chennai which was a subsidiary of ELCOT's joint venture company. It went missing from the records mysteriously.
No one knows how it went out of ELCOT's control or its joint venture company ELNET.
When I was physically searching for the records in the premises of the joint venture company on July 28, 2008, I heard the news that I was transferred out from ELCOT.
It was the biggest shock of my life. It took me three full months and continuous visits to church to recover from it.

I have given details of the people who caused my transfer in my complaint to the National Commission for Scheduled Castes.

When were you suspended and why?

I was suspended on July 21, 2010. They have quoted that there was a problem in my community certificate. I gave my community certificate to the Union Public Service Commission and not to the state government. I am an officer of the Government of India and not the state government.

The suspension order has been done in the most malafide manner. It is like a surgeon trying to do major surgery without even the body of the patient.
Without my community certificate in hand, the Tamil Nadu government has considered my community certificate as 'fake'. The Tamil Nadu government is not my employer, but the Government of India.
I was recruited by the UPSC through a common all India service competitive examination. Only the UPSC and the Government of India have my records. So, without any records and without any authority the Tamil Nadu government has resorted to my suspension. Strange indeed!
In 2003 you received an award from the National Democratic Alliance government. What was that for?

I was the collector of Thiruvarur between 1999 and 2001. I implemented the first e-district of the country. Based on that experience I wrote a technical paper on e-governance security. I was awarded for best paper during the national conference on e-governance in 2003.

There are reports that Chief Minister M Karunanidhi [ Images ] used to like you.

Yes! He liked me in the past. In 1999, at a public meeting, he called me thambi which means younger brother.

You have also filed a case against the state government in the high court.

In May, the government started a detailed enquiry against me on the complaint that I had accumulated assets disproportionate to my known sources of income. I have always been prompt in declaring all my assets and new acquisitions, movable and immovable.
I have only two pieces of immovable assets -- a plot of land acquired through the IAS Association in the far outskirts of Chennai city during March 1998; the other a 1,000 square feet second hand flat at Santhome in Chennai during March 2003. There is no further acquisition.
For both these acquisitions I have taken prior permission from the government, indicating the sources such as housing loan, GPF (General Provident Fund), loan, bank loan etc.
My annual property returns for all these years indicate these details.
I came to know that the government was going to illegally raid my house to tarnish my image because I chose to send proposals to nationalise Sumangali Cable Vision. I moved the high court challenging the illegal Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption enquiry on June 6, 2010. The Madras high court stayed the vigilance probe.
The contention before the high court was that the state has powers to prosecute an IAS officer under the Prevention of Corruption Act by filing a proper FIR and not through the manual which enables secret enquiry, thus enabling the government to tarnish the reputation of honest officers who refuse to toe the line.
The argument advanced before the high court by my advocate was that the government should immediately arrest me and interrogate me if it feels that it has credible evidence on my alleged disproportionate assets. He also declared that no bail application would be filed in that event.
The state government was not ready to file an FIR against me nor it is ready to arrest me.
Subsequently, I filed another case before the Madras high court on July 16, 2010, challenging the DVAC (Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption) manual, calling it unconstitutional. I declared in my affidavit before the high court that the manual was being used to shield the corrupt and to book innocent officers to force them to toe the illegal line of the bosses. I was suspended on July 21, 2010.

Subsequently the stay was vacated. The high court has said the vigilance enquiry can go on, but the government cannot take action on it without the court's permission.

Source-----------http://news.rediff.com/interview/2010/sep/08/interview-why-tamil-nadu-suspended-this-ias-officer.htm