SAIL targets Whistle Blower Rajeev Bhatia on an arbitrary pretext

Whistle Blower given premature retirement for sending corruption complaint through GMAIL

Whistle Blower Rajeev Bhatia sent the corruption complaints to Soma Mondal and V S Chakravarty, the then Chairman and Director (Commercial) of SAIL on Nov 17, 2022 from a Gmail id know.ur.officers@gmail.com. Both of them buried the complaints under the carpet and suspended the Whistle Blower on Nov 24, 2022 without providing any reason.

Subsequently, to take revenge on the Whistle Blower, after a false and motivated chargesheets and inquiry, Bhatia was awarded severe punishment for sending the complaints through a Gmail id, a third-party server. Apart from the above, he was also punished on the pretext that the complaints sent by Bhatia through Gmail id know.ur.officers@gmail.com are insinuations, lacking evidence, imaginary, malicious, vexatious, and frivolous. Height of the matter is that the charge was proved against Bhatia without conducting any investigation in his complaints. The issue is not limited to award of major punishments but these punishment awards were later formed the basis for unlawfully invoking Rule 56(j) to prematurely retirement him on Feb 11, 2025.

During the inquiry proceeding, Bhatia presented many exhibits before the Inquiry Officer, Munish Ahuja where Directors and Executive Directors were also using GMAIL for official correspondence. However, owing to “Conflict of Interest” and guided by management’s directive, Ahuja proved the above arbitrary charges against Bhatia. In addition, Bhatia also brought to the notice of Disciplinary Authority; Appellate Authority and CMD SAIL Amerandu Prakash that numerous SAIL officers are using third party applications like GMAIL, GOOGLE MEET, ZOOM, WHATSAPP etc to exchange official information. The extent of the usage of third-party applications is such that Amerandu and other Directors invariably conduct official meetings on the ZOOM platform. Since, SAIL management was hell bent on taking revenge on Bhatia for exposing the ongoing corruption, they did not give any consideration to the documents placed by Bhatia before them.

On Mar 17, 2026, PESB issued a memo for selection of CMD SAIL for which interviews are scheduled for Mar 28, 2026. The memo reveals that out of six senior officers of SAIL called for the interview, four have their email ids as GMAIL.

What punitive action CMD SAIL Amerandu Prakash proposes to take against above 4 senior officers of SAIL and many others who are using third party applications for official work ? Will he snatch the job and livelihood from these officers also ?

What punitive action Secretary Ministry of Steel proposes to take against CMD SAIL Amerandu Prakash ?

It is amply clear that the use of GMAIL is rampant in the organisation but only Bhatia was targeted for sending the corruption complaints through GMAIL.

It is noteworthy that even Home Minister of India, Amit Shah also used a third-party email id amitshah.bjp@zohomail.in