New Delhi, May 11 (IANS): The Centre has approved premature repatriation of senior bureaucrat on Central deputation for seeking complimentary passes for an IPL match from the Delhi and District Cricket Association. Gopal Krishan Gupta has been sent back to his cadre, the railways.

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the repatriation on Gupta, a 1987 officer of the Indian Railway Service of Mechanical Engineers (IRSME) and posted as a Joint Secretary in the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, with "immediate effect with imposition of extended cooling off condition", according to an order issued by Department of Personnel and Training.

Although the order does not mention any specific reason, a letter, in the possession of IANS, shows the demand for the passes cost Gupta.

In March 2019, Gupta rang up the office of DDCA President Rajat Sharma and sought passes for an IPL match scheduled in Delhi on March 30. On not hearing from the DDCA, he, on April 3, wrote a letter of complaint to Sharma, expressing his dissatisfaction at the response from Sharma's Executive Assistance and personal staff.

In the letter to Sharma, he said: "May I request that your office staff may show courtesy in such matters and give timely feedback even if the response is not affirmative. I think, we must have mutual respect for the positions being held by us."

Gupta also drew Sharma's attention on the laxity of his officials in not communicating a senior bureaucrat's response to him. "I do not know whether this episode and the sequence of events as narrated above has been brought to your notice and whether your executive assistant had informed you about my call and my request for arrangement of passes," he wrote in the letter.