Why Bhatia calls the IAS one of India's most corrupt

In the case of Arun Bhatia, joining the Indian Administrative Service did not only mean occupying a position of power in government. For Bhatia, joining the service meant facing a confrontation with the powers that be for 30 years. In his tenure within India, he claims he was transferred 26 times. The corruption investigations, actions against unlicensed construction, senior officials' cases and other confrontations formed part of his career in the Indian bureaucracy. In the end, he made a judgment far worse than any specific case of corruption; that is, that there was something fundamentally wrong with the institution itself.

Bhatia joined the Indian Administrative Service through the 1967 batch of the Maharashtra cadre. Bhatia's educational background was unique for a bureaucrat. Bhatia obtained his bachelor's degree in History from St. Stephen's College, Delhi University, while his post-graduate studies were done at Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he attained a master's degree in History, Economic History and Political Thought.

A troublesome officer he was known right from the start. In 1982, when he was posted as Collector of Dhule, Bhatia had investigated some irregularities in the Employment Guarantee Scheme of Maharashtra. This scheme was designed to employ the rural landless and poor farmers of the state. As per the contemporary accounts of that time, Bhatia found 42 cases of such irregularities in the multi-crore project and had initiated proceedings against them. He was shifted from there soon after.

His next big fight was in Bombay. When he was posted as the Collector of Bombay, Bhatia acted against the irregularities associated with land and construction work. Some contemporary accounts reveal that Bhatia had investigated cases of land mafia who manipulated their record books to get extra Floor Space Index (FSI), so that they could construct more than the limit. Bhatia’s own account mentions that he had been threatened by the Bombay land mafia at that time.

This was happening frequently. Once Bhatia discovered some problem or irregularity, took action and found himself transferred to another position. He worked in the Food and Drugs Administration for some period, taking action against the pharmaceutical companies concerning their violations. It is noted in his biography that such actions were taken regarding big companies, like Glaxo.

But the best illustration of his approach occurred in 1999 in Pune.

Bhatia was appointed Pune Municipal Commissioner on March 6, 1999. Very soon after being promoted, he considered the issue of unauthorised constructions in Pune. According to the affidavit filed by Bhatia in the Bombay High Court, he was presented with lists of such buildings on important roads where the demolition notices had already been issued, but there were no demolitions because of the pressure put on the municipal authorities. He ordered the City Engineer to carry out demolition operations regardless of who the owners were and their connection. Demolition started on March 10.

Bhatia was moved six days later.

The speed of his transfer is quite remarkable – he was appointed Municipal Commissioner on March 6 and got transferred on March 13. Afterwards, the government assigned him to work in the Archives Department. Citizen groups appealed against this transfer on grounds of its arbitrary nature and public interest.

This court's ruling is perhaps the most compelling evidence in Bhatia’s case. The court analysed the government’s argument that the transfer was linked to the investigation of the leak of confidential communications. It dismissed the government’s claims and concluded that, under the given conditions, Bhatia’s transfer was a form of punishment. The court characterised this decision as “outrageous” and ordered the defendant to reinstate Bhatia as Pune Municipal Commissioner.

This verdict does not prove that each of the transfers that Bhatia underwent was punitive. However, the Pune case shows that, at least in this particular case, the government could not offer adequate justification.

Bhatia’s clash with the civic authorities of Pune, however, did not stop at that point. The administration of Bhatia investigated illegal constructions and questioned anomalies within the municipal corporation. In subsequent investigations, nine out of 19 complaints raised by him were validated, either in full or in part, and chargesheets have been submitted against several ex-municipal commissioners and officers. According to contemporaneous reports, the outcome of investigations was seen as a vindication of his allegations, though the officers who faced charges complained that they were not given enough time to respond to the allegations.

However, for Bhatia, the real issue was not in one corrupt officer or one illegal construction. It was what was done when the corruption became known.

He says that the people he reported were often protected and not punished. His personal website shows his career to be marked by rejections of promotions, frequent transfers, departmental inquiries, unfavourable assessments and political and bureaucratic opposition. On the other hand, he himself admits that his investigations sometimes led to punishment of the people involved. It is this overall pattern that made him frustrated.

These successive transfers slowly became a statistic associated with his name. According to Bhatia, he was transferred twenty-six times over twenty-six years of service in India. He also worked on development projects in various countries during his seven-year tenure on United Nations assignments. He has said that these assignments abroad were a relief from the fights that he was engaged in against the Indian bureaucracy.

However, instead of moving away from the problem after his retirement, Bhatia entered the realm of politics.

He contested the 2004 Lok Sabha elections as an independent candidate for Pune. He had no political party backing him but still got 60,237 votes and came in third place. This is important since it shows that his anti-corruption campaigner status had made a political constituency of itself despite him lacking political party machinery behind him.

Bhatia also established the People’s Guardian Party in 2009, which stood on the principles of fighting corruption. The media of that time reported that Bhatia was an ex-bureaucrat who felt that people’s frustration against corruption should be channelled into politics, not protests.

But his most sensational remarks came after he had left the government service. In a TV interview held in 2024, Bhatia called the IAS one of the “most corrupt o in the country.” Bhatia did not claim that all IAS officials were corrupt. Instead, he argued that the organisational culture tolerated corruption in the sense that even sincere officials would be too afraid to oppose bad decisions for fear of jeopardising their own career and position.

This is an important distinction. Bhatia's critique is personal criticism of the bureaucracy rather than an official determination of the corruptness of the IAS as a whole. India has many civil servants operating under different conditions, and corruption in the government is far from being uniform and is not exclusive to the IAS.

But then there is the disturbing issue of how the bureaucracy deals with dissent in its ranks.

An officer is meant to carry out the policies of the government and the law of the country. At the same time, the same officer faces political pressures, powerful private interests, or his or her colleagues whose decisions look doubtful. When he or she decides to stand against all these factors, the repercussions can go further than the particular situation.

The 1999 Pune case is rather unusual in the sense that the judiciary stepped in and restored Bhatia. But the career of this civil servant demonstrates a different point: a government officer can be moved from one place to another while the problem stays.

Perhaps that is the reason Bhatia's account still has relevance even decades after his most famous confrontations. The importance of Bhatia's legacy lies in this question rather than in the figure 26. If an administrative system relies on its officers' readiness to carry out their duties in accordance with the established procedure, how does it handle a situation where carrying out these duties continuously puts this officer at risk of losing his career?

Arun Bhatia never suggested any solution to this problem, at least not from what his later criticism suggests. After several decades in the system, Bhatia came to understand that individual morality is not enough. Institutions require some kind of control over themselves, protection for lawful officers and sanctions for those who abuse the public trust.

Bhatia's career, therefore, is not a narrative of the single hero fighting against corruption. He exposed irregularities, he resisted transfers, went to court, engaged in politics and talked about corruption even after retiring. Some of his charges were investigated and partially confirmed; others remained in the sphere of dispute.

However, the essential truth about this story is truly telling in that after decades in the bureaucratic apparatus of India, a policeman questioned the ability of the system to regulate itself rather than defend it.

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