Manish Kumar Verma

The trouble for former Patna district magistrate Manish Kumar Verma is far from over. The 2000-batch IAS officer is likely to be repatriated to his parent Odisha cadre.

Verma was removed from the post of the Patna district magistrate on Sunday in the aftermath of stampede during Friday’s Ravan Vadh, which left 33 people dead and several injured. He had assumed charge as the district magistrate of Patna on July 16 this year. Barely two-and-a-half months on, he was shown the door.

A source said the state government has decided to repatriate the young bureaucrat in the middle of his five-year of inter-state deputation owing to “inept handling of the situation” at Gandhi Maidan, which drew flak from all quarters.

The source said the present dispensation was in favour of Verma’s repatriation as the government came under the fire not from the leaders of the opposition parties but also from those of the newly formed political alliance, which fared well during the Lok Sabha bypolls in the state.

Verma had joined the state in March 2012 and was appointed as director in the social welfare department. Later, he was made district magistrate of Purnea. He courted a controversy for his alleged partisan role in the Lok Sabha elections as the district magistrate of Purnea.

Leaders of the BJP had demanded immediate removal of Verma from the post of Purnea district magistrate for his alleged partisan role during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. He was charged with “working as an agent” of the ruling JDU.

The election commission took cognisance of the complaint against Verma and he was shifted from there. Subsequently, he was posted as the managing director of North Bihar Power Distribution Company Limited.

Soon after the results of the Lok Sabha election were declared, Verma was sent back to his old posting in Purnea. “He was appointed the district magistrate of Patna, the post every IAS officer vouches for, was because of his close connections in the corridors of power,” an IAS officer said.

The officer, who did not wish to be named, said another IAS officer, who is at present on inter-state deputation, was lobbying for Verma so that he could complete his five-year period of deputation.

If Verma is repatriated it would not be an isolated case. Earlier, Alok Kumar, a 1997-batch IPS officer, was sent back to his parent Jammu and Kashmir cadre after he was accused of allegedly demanding Rs 10 crore as extortion money from a liquor tycoon Tunnaji Pandey.

The controversy erupted during Alok’s posting in Saran as deputy inspector-general. An FIR was lodged with the state police’s economic offences unit (EOU) against Alok and others. The EOU sleuths had arrested two persons when they were allegedly going to hand over a part of the extortion money to then DIG.