An unbridled public spat between two senior officers – Roopa Moudgil IPS and Rohini Sindhuri IAS – has become the biggest talking point in Karnataka. The state government has belatedly initiated action against both the officers and transferred them without posting. The two officers, both of whom have a significant public following, are no strangers to controversies and public meltdowns.
The current row started when a picture of Rohini Sindhuri and JD(S) MLA Sa Ra Mahesh sitting at a table surfaced. Roopa took to social media to question if Rohini was striking a compromise with a politician. This then descended into a full public fight with Roopa making 20 allegations against Rohini including that of corruption and inappropriate behavior. Roopa also shared pictures of Rohini, which she claimed Rohini sent to male officers. Rohini hit back calling it vengeance and implied that Roopa is mentally unfit.
Roopa is a 2000-batch IPS officer who had ranked 43 in all-India rankings. Rohini is a 2009-batch IAS officer and she too has been making headlines ever since she joined the service.
Both officers have had run-ins with several other officers throughout their career. Roopa first shot to fame as the Superintendent of Police for Dharwad district in 2004 when she arrested former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharati for violating a court order and hoisting a flag at Dharwad’s Idgah Maidan.
Roopa took on her immediate boss HN Sathyanarayana Rao in 2017 when she was posted as Deputy Inspector General of Police (Prisons). She accused her boss of accepting a bribe of Rs 2 crore to allow special privileges to former All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) leader VK Sasikala while she was serving her sentence in prison.
Roopa made these allegations against Sathyanarayana Rao before the media and was transferred out of the Prisons Department without a posting after she failed to provide any evidence. She responded to the transfer orders by filing a complaint against her boss with the now-defunct Anti-Corruption Bureau.
In November 2020, Roopa was engaged in a social media spat with a right-wing handle True Indology over use of crackers and whether there is anything about it in Hindu scriptures. True Indology’s account was suspended by Twitter after which hashtags attacking Roopa started trending.
In December 2020, it was reported that Roopa was being probed for interfering with a tendering process for buying cameras for the Bengaluru Safe City Project. This too became a full-blown scandal with Roopa accusing fellow IPS officer Hemanth Nimbalkar of making a false and motivated complaint against her. She wrote to her superiors alleging that Nimbalkar was favouring a private firm for the Rs 1,067 crore project.
Rohini was posted as the Deputy Commissioner of Hassan district on July 14, 2017 and during her time there, she earned a reputation for cracking down on the sand mafia which was rampant in the district. She was transferred out of the district on January 22, 2018, a decision she challenged in the Karnataka High Court. The decision of the Central Administrative Tribunal was set aside by the HC and she managed to retain her post. In accordance with the HC order, she was reinstated on June 25.
In 2018, she locked up the then Janata Dal (Secular) legislator and Hassan District-in-charge minister A Manju inside his official bungalow after she found that he was using government buildings for election work.
In June 2021, former Mysuru City Corporation Commissioner Shilpa Nag resigned accusing Mysuru Deputy Commissioner Rohini Sindhuri of humiliating her. “As a Deputy Commissioner, she has every right to lead the team, but she has no right to abuse us and humiliate us at every level,” she wrote. With the two officers making their fight public, the government was forced to transfer both.
In the same month, a report found that Rohini had not obtained the required permissions before the construction of a swimming pool in her official residence Jal Sannidhi. The report prepared by the Mysuru Regional Commissioner GC Prakash stated that Sindhuri violated norms by not seeking permission from either the Heritage Department or the empowered heritage committee before constructing the pool in a heritage property.
In December 2022, popular singer Lucky Ali alleged that the property he owns in Bengaluru has been encroached upon by Sudhir Reddy, the husband of Rohini Sindhuri. Sudhir refuted the charges by responding that the land in question did not belong to the singer.
In the latest fracas, Roopa has also raked up the suicide of IAS officer DK Ravi and insinuated that Rohini had a role in it. Ravi had killed himself in March 2015 after Rohini spurned his advances. Messages sent by Ravi to Rohini in his last moments clearly showed that he was trying to coerce her into a relationship with him by threatening to take his own life. The closure report given by the CBI too ruled that he died due to personal reasons and there was no external pressure on him. However, in her latest attack, Roopa has accused Rohini of encouraging the overtures by Ravi. The chats between Ravi and Rohini that were scrutinised by the investigating team revealed that she had steadfastly refused to indulge him and his advances.
With both officers refusing to relent, the Karnataka government has transferred both of them without posting. This even as the Chief Secretary has sought a written explanation from the two. Roopa’s husband and Commissioner, Survey, Settlement and Land Records, Munish Moudgil too has been transferred from his posting.