No official facilitated fake IAS trainee Ruby’s stay at Mussoorie academy: RTI reply
Thirty-two months after a woman, who posed as a trainee IAS officer, was arrested for illegal stay at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) in Mussoorie, the training centre for top civil servants has denied any senior official’s role in facilitating Ruby Choudhary’s stay.
Thirty-two months after a woman, who posed as a trainee IAS officer, was arrested for illegal stay at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) in Mussoorie, the training centre for top civil servants has denied any senior official’s role in facilitating Ruby Choudhary’s stay.
Taking a U-turn from its earlier stand, the academy said no internal probe was carried out in the case. In a reply sought under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, the academy’s chief principal information officer Satyabir Singh said, “Academy has not conducted any internal inquiry into the case of Ruby. The case has been inquired by the Special Investigative Team.”
But Singh, replying to an RTI query in June 2015, had mentioned that “probe is going on.” In a separate communication, the then academy director Rajeev Kapoor had also claimed that an internal probe was going on. HT has all the relevant papers.
Ruby Choudhary was arrested in April 2015 after she acknowledged her guilt. A case of cheating, forgery and impersonating a public servant was registered against her. It was alleged that she stayed for nearly six months inside the academy and even appeared in a group photograph with former President APJ Abdul Kalam.
The LBSNAA is a high-security academy where trainee and serving civil servants are enrolled into courses round the year. Ruby’s presence was considered a serious security breach and the LBSNAA management suspended a guard.
The academy, in the fresh RTI reply, noted that Ruby didn’t attend any classroom nor was issued any book from the library. Ruby, who was interrogated by the SIT, had alleged that a deputy director of the academy helped her in staying there in lieu of money, an allegation that was denied by the LBSNAA management.
Ruby, who belonged to Muzzafarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, had reportedly told her relatives that she was a trainee civil servant.
“No higher post staff has played any role in the Ruby Choudhary’s scandal,” the RTI reply read.
Meanwhile, additional director general of police (law and order) Ashok Kumar said a charge sheet was filed against Choudhary in the court. “She was chargesheeted by the SIT which was constituted to probe the case. No criminal liability, however, was found on the part of the academy in terms of laxity or negligence.”
If no one helped her, then how did a fake officer stay for long inside the academy -- still a baffling question. The BJP, which had demanded a CBI inquiry into the case, has now gone silent.