When he was a bureaucrat, he had run-ins with more than one politician. And when a conflict with a politician surfaced, he often stuck to the high moral ground, preferring to walk out of jobs rather than bend to his political masters.
Meet former Union home secretary Madhav Godbole, litterateur, former civil servant and the man whose committee report has pulled no punches on US energy company Enron's Dabhol power project.
Last week, Godbole hit the headlines when he resigned from the chairmanship of the Maharashtra government-appointed committee to re-negotiate tariffs with the Dabhol Power Company, after Sharad Pawar criticised him at a public meeting in Mumbai. "I am a self respecting person. I could not tolerate Pawar's allegations as he is the leader of a party which is an important constituent of the ruling coalition in the state," Godbole declared.
More From This Section
While he withdrew his resignation later in the day after Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh appealed to him to do so, resigning from jobs is not exactly a new experience for Godbole. Nor are conflicts with Pawar new. In 1989, he resigned from the post of Maharashtra finance secretary after then chief minister Pawar announced -- without consulting Godbole -- that he was scrapping zero-based budgeting.
In 1978, he resigned as chairman of the Maharashtra State Electricity Board following differences with the then state power minister.
In 1993, he resigned as Union home secretary and quit the Indian Administrative Service following a run-in with his then minister of state, Rajesh Pilot. He had often privately complained about Pilot to his seniors in the bureaucracy. When he felt a little slighted by the minister, he quit in a huff. His seniors again exhorted him to reconsider his decision. But he did not change his mind.
Godbole has been in the eye of other storms too. His first brush with controversy occurred when he was the petroleum and natural gas secretary in the V P Singh administration. The Gulf crisis (sparked off by Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait) led to a sharp rise in international crude oil prices, forcing India to weigh the option of raising domestic oil prices.
Politically, this was an unsustainable proposition. Instead of assuming a leadership role on the matter, Godbole allowed the prime minister's office to call the shots. And when the PMO made a strong case for a price hike, Godbole did not seem to associate himself with the move.
His past might throw up a picture of an inflexible no-nonsense officer who doesn't suffer any bending of the rules. Indeed, some of his critics accuse him of parading his honesty. "He was not just an honest officer. He was more than conscious about his honesty. He would almost wear his honesty on his sleeve," says one veteran journalist who interacted with him when he was posted in New Delhi.
More recently, the press has hinted at rifts within the committee he heads and suggested that three of the committee members quit because Godbole was pursuing his own agenda. But Godbole replies that these members had not been attending the committee deliberations from the beginning. Besides, he points out, one of them, former Union power secretary E A S Sarma, backed his demand for a judicial probe in the first part of the committee's report.
For all this. Godbole has his share of admirers too. At least one member of the Godbole committee describes the committee's chairman as a sincere and committed man who genuinely wants to find a solution to the Enron problem. "He also has an excellent grasp of the subject," he adds. A voracious reader, Godbole has also written nine books (five in English, four in Marathi), including his memoirs, "Unfinished Innings."