Doctor-turned IAS Prabhat Kumar gets applause in UP land scam judgement

IN THIS season of scams when bureaucrats along with their political masters are feeling the heat, here is a rare story of an IAS officer getting a virtual special jury award! Prabhat Kumar, a 1985 batch Uttar Pradesh cadre IAS and witness to Neera Yadav case was termed 'very important' in its judgement by the court. The CBI-designated court recently awarded four years jail terms to former UP chief secretary and 1967 batch retired IAS Neera Yadav and MD of Flex companies Ashok Chaturvedi.

Prabhat Kumar who served as deputy CEO at Noida Authority from January 1996 to April 1997, spotted faults in the corporate group housing scheme which was an open ended scheme with no ending date. Kumar got a special mention in the 73-page judgement passed by CBI special judge AK Singh at Ghaziabad recently.

A graduate in medicine surgery, Dr Kumar also received an MBA degree from an Australian University. Significantly, two of the MBBS-turned bureaucrats have become the newsmakers recently mainly because of wrong reasons. Whereas home ministry’s director and 1994 batch West Bengal cadre IAS Ravi Inder Singh was suspended recently for allegedly leaking sensitive information in lieu of favours, another MBBS Dr Ketan Shukla, a 1986-batch Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer had faced a case of sexual assault slapped by his 22-year old domestic help who stayed with him in Kenya where he had served as the deputy high commissioner.