Saturday 22 August 2015

Smita gets government aid to fight legal battle

It is not a sin to be deadly attractive, no doubt. But unfortunately, many a young officers have been victims of feminine jealousy and the fourth estate seems to be the villain in most of the cases. Well, most often the victims of fetishism are left to defend themselves, but this pretty, petite civil servant is luckier than her counterparts. Smita Sabharwal, the IAS officer who was insulted by a national magazine and its Hyderabad-based assistant editor through a caustic column has got a mentor in the form of none other than Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao.
Looks like it doesn’t hold up, but the government, yes, I mean our own Telangana government, has given its Additional Chief Secretary in the Chief Minister’s Office (read Smita) a financial aid of Rs 15 lakh for her to take a legal battle to its logical conclusion. Remember, hurt and humiliated, Smita filed a defamation suit against the magazine and sought Rs 10 crore from the magazine management.
Millions protested against the outrageous treatment of a promising officer and condemned the magazine in unison (I was one among them).
Soon the snarky piece and Smita’s outbursts hit the headlines across the country, my close friend and a senior journalist with a Mumbai-based tabloid spoke to her husband, Akun Sabharwal, who is currently heading the Drug Control Administration. Outraged by the column, he said, “We were shocked and upset that a reputed national magazine had carried such a nasty, slanderous piece against a woman IAS officer. It took no time for her to realise that she should fight. We are married for 10 years. No slanderous piece against my wife by anybody is tolerable. Fortunately, I did not need to console her, as she is very strong. We were initially shocked but quickly realised our duty lay in taking on the magazine. What does the so-called journalist who wrote that indecent piece know how Smita is treated by the CM? The CM addresses her ‘naanna’, which means ‘little child’. How can such affectionate relations be misinterpreted?”
And that is it. How affectionately the legislature treats the executive? Chief Minister treats her as a little girl and heaps on her his affection in a fatherly manner. And now that his affection turned out to be true, with him providing her financial aid from the tax payers’ money, where can you find such a compassionate government?
I just remember how Merin Joseph IPS, a trainee officer went viral on social media in January this year when someone in her native Kerala posted her ‘very attractive’ photo on facebook with a caption “Merin Joseph IPS - How many likes for our new ACP of Kochi?” even as she was undergoing training at Hyderabad’s National Police Academy and how she handled the situation with ease.
Poor Smita does not know Madhavi Tata, the assistant editor of Outlook, but I do. It was after all a wrong way to handle a hitherto little known and insignificant journo for an IAS officer of Smita’s caibre. Now, with the government joined the fight, Tata stands a formidable challenge to the government and the bureaucracy.