IAS Officer Welcomes Priest With Folded Hands, Delhi Govt Seeks Response After Video Goes Viral

In the video, the District Magistrate of West Delhi, Lakshay Singhal, can be seen welcoming and felicitating the priest with a shawl and talking to him with folded hands.

A video of an IAS officer offering his chair to a priest in his office has been doing the rounds on social media. In the video, the District Magistrate of West Delhi, Lakshay Singhal, can be seen welcoming and felicitating the priest with a shawl and talking to him with folded hands. The priest can be seen sitting on DM’s official chair.

After the video went viral, the Delhi government took cognisansce of the matter and sought a reply from the bureaucrat. A senior revenue department officer said, “We have taken notice of the video and asked him to furnish a reply as to why he did this in a public office, to which he said that the priest is his guru who advised him to pursue civil services. So, he invited the priest to felicitate him as a token of gratitude and respect," as quoted by The Indian Express.

Responding to the department, Singhal said, “Sir, he has been my guru since I was born. I invited him to felicitate him. He was the only person who advised me when I was in college to prepare for UPSC civil services. My father used to consider him as his father since I lost my grandfather when my father was just 23,” as quoted by The Indian Express.

Lakshya Singhal is an IAS officer belonging to the 2019 batch of the Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territory (AGMUT) cadre. The Delhi government has not taken any action against Singhal yet. 

In August, two senior Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers have been suspended by the Punjab government in the wake of its sudden reversal on the dissolution of all gram panchayats in the state.