Most transferred IAS officer Khemka, five others promoted

CHANDIGARH, Jan 1: Ashok Khemka, senior IAS officer of Harya cadre, has been promoted as principal secretary along with five others by the Harya government, an official spokesman said on Friday.

Apart from Khemka, five other IAS (Indian Administrative Service) officers of the 1991 batch, mely Vineet Garg, Anil Malik, Shrikant Walgad, Apoorva Kumar Singh and Abhilaksh Likhi, have been promoted to the higher administrative grade.

“These IAS officers, on promotion, will continue to function in their present postings till further orders,” the spokesman said.

Khemka, whose actions even attracted Prime Minister rendra Modi’s attention in his speeches during Harya assembly elections in October 2014, hit tiol headlines in October 2012 when he cancelled the mutation of a Rs 58-crore land deal between Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra and realty giant DLF and ordered a probe into the controversial land deals done by Vadra in Harya.

Khemka, an IIT graduate, was expected to get an important assignment after the BJP came to power in Harya in October 2014. However, he was posted in the transport department. In April 2015, the Manohar Lal Khattar-led BJP government transferred Khemka to the inconsequential post of secretary, Archaeology and Museums Department and director general, Archaeology and Museums. (ians)