The National Commission for Scheduled Tribes has now issued a Warrant of Arrest for A.S. Rajeev, managing director and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Bank of Maharashtra, in connection with the harassment of a Scheduled Tribe woman in Odisha who was trying to clear paperwork for benefits she was due after her husband, an ex-employee, had passed away.
The ST Commission, invoking its powers as a civil court, issued the warrant and directed the Director General of Police in Maharashtra to arrest Mr. Rajeev and produce him before the Commission’s headquarters in New Delhi.
Officials said that the woman, from Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district, was trying to get the paperwork cleared for benefits due to her as the wife of an ex-employee of the bank. Her husband had been a deputy manager at BoM.
Acting on a complaint from the woman, the Commission had issued a Summons to Mr. Rajeev in connection with the case on February 6. He was directed to appear before Commission members on February 17 but did not show up. The ST Panel said that he was absconding and keeping out of the way to avoid being served with the Summons.
The Commission asked the DGP of Maharashtra to execute the warrant on or before March 2, and directed that a report be filed in case the warrant is not executed in the said time.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes had in December, 2022, tabled a report in the House, noting that there had been increasing number of incidents where SC and ST employees of PSUs across the country were being denied pension and other benefits or facing delays in the same by being told that their caste-certificates were still being verified.
The House panel had also noted previously that such harassment of SC/ST employees and their family members was becoming a “modus operandi” for the organisations concerned and PSUs.