Rohini Sindhuri, the IAS officer whose name is embroiled in a public spat with IPS officer D Roopa after the latter caused a flutter in the state bureaucracy with her social media posts, has written a letter to Karnataka chief secretary (CS) Vandita Sharma, calling the allegations made by Roopa “false”, a “scandalous lie” and a “mischievous move” to malign her reputation.
News18 has exclusively accessed a copy of the letter which seeks the immediate intervention of the CS to initiate action against Roopa as per the All India Service Rules.
“I request that in case this type of anarchical behaviour is not acted against the rule of law will be thrown to pieces and public trial and false allegation based on personal vendetta will become the order of the day,” the letter to the chief secretary read.
D Roopa, an IPS officer who is currently serving as the managing director of the Karnataka State Handicrafts Development Corporation, in two long social media posts accused Sindhuri of “several wrongdoings”.
Sindhuri’s letter also comes as a response to Roopa’s letter to Sharma requesting swift action against the IAS officer.
Alleging misconduct on the part of a public servant, a set of personal photographs of Sindhuri, who is the Muzrai department commissioner, was also released by Roopa claiming they were sent by the IAS officer to a few male officers.
Sindhuri, a 2009-batch officer, termed the allegations a “false, personal vilification campaign” against her and has threatened to file cases against the IPS officer for her “vengeful, baseless statements made out due to personal hatred”. She also called Roopa’s action one of a person who had lost her mental balance.
Both officers have accused each other of violating the Civil Services Conduct rules and have written to Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai and chief secretary Vandita Sharma, they said.
In her letter, Sindhuri said that the act of posting false and scandalising posts against another officer is unbecoming of an IPS officer. She added that if an officer has a grievance against another or wants to seek action, there is a prescribed method to do so.
In two separate long posts on social media, Roopa had made 20 allegations including a YouTube link titled “Rohini Sindhuri meeting with JDS MLA Sa Ra Mahesh”, days after he filed a defamation case against her. Sindhuri had made allegations of land grabbing against the legislator, and a photo of a meeting of Sindhuri and Mahesh went viral claiming it was to patch up after the issue went viral.
Rebutting Roopa’s allegations that Sindhuri had built a personal swimming pool at her official residence when 24 people died at the Chamarajanagar government hospital due to lack of oxygen at the peak of the Covid pandemic, the IAS officer called it false. She said that at the time of the Chamarajanagar tragic deaths, she was the Mysuru deputy commissioner and her role had been enquired into by the High Court-appointed committee as well as a single-member commission of inquiry of the government of Karnataka.
“Both have clearly and unequivocally said that I had no role whatsoever in the said deaths nor did I prevent oxygen from going to Chamarajanagar district,” the letter states, quoting in detail from the court and commission verdicts.
Another accusation made by Roopa was that in 2014 when Sindhuri was the CEO of Mandya Zilla Panchayat, she fudged figures on the construction of toilets under the PM’s Swacch Bharat campaign, for which she was awarded by the central government for her work.
Countering this allegation, Sindhuri in the letter to Sharma said that her “work on toilet construction was well documented and in the public domain. I was honoured by the Govt of India and the allegations are false”.
She also went on to say that all her actions as deputy commissioner Mysuru or elsewhere were in bonafide discharge of her duties. She said that allegations were made against her while she was DC of Mysuru about land and other matters on which she had initiated an inquiry. “The same was urging my last days at Mysuru and I was quickly transferred. My successor conducted the inquiry and the report is with the government,” she stated.
On Roopa’s allegations that Sindhuri had shared “personal photographs” with three IAS officers, she called it a “scandalous lie” and requested the chief secretary that action be taken on it.
On another allegation that Sindhuri and her husband engaged media trolls, the IAS officer called it baseless and also recalled that she had filed a report with the government to take action against the IPS officer for those false charges.
A house being built in Jalahalli by Sindhuri’s family was also a bone of contention between the two officers. Roopa claimed in her post that the immovable property in question was not mentioned by the IAS officer in her list of other properties as required by a government officer.
“The property in Jalahalli is in the name of my mother-in-law and belongs to her for a long time. It does not belong to me or my husband…that I have not declared it in my annual property returns is false and mischievous to cause damage to me,” Sindhuri said in her letter.
These allegations against Rohini Sindhuri were also detailed in a letter by Roopa earlier. The letter requested swift action against Sindhuri for existing allegations of violations such as building a swimming pool in a heritage building — the Mysuru Deputy Commissioner’s office — without necessary permissions. A preliminary investigation has been proven on this issue, stated Roopa in her letter, yet no disciplinary inquiry has been initiated.
Roopa also alleges disproportionate income stating that about Rs 2.3 crore worth of furniture was imported from Italy to Sindhuri’s house. While the government has rejected the plea for a Lokayukta inquiry into this, Roopa requests the government to reconsider the decision.
Roopa’s letter also alleges that the contract to build a Karnataka Bhavan in Tirupati was given to a firm by Sindhuri without calling for tenders.
Another allegation is that Sindhuri “knew” of items from her official Mysuru residence being “carted away” to her Bengaluru residence. Roopa also reminds the state government that no action was taken against Sindhuri on the complaint by Harsh Gupta IAS that alleged Sindhuri caused a loss of two crore tonnes of sugar when she was with the food and civil supplies department.
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