The Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), under the Union Agriculture Ministry, has issued a notice to IAS officer Durga Shakti Nagpal, asking her to pay ₹1.63 crore in damages for what it describes as her “unauthorised occupation” of an official bungalow on the Pusa campus in Delhi. The institute claims Nagpal continued to stay in the government accommodation long after her deputation ended.
Nagpal, a 2010-batch IAS officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre and currently serving as the District Magistrate of Lakhimpur Kheri, has denied any wrongdoing.
She said she stayed in the house only after seeking extensions from the ministry and had already paid rent for the permitted period. “I had requested the Ministry for extension, which was allowed, and I have paid the rent for the same and subsequently vacated the house.”
She also said that her parents’ health conditions delayed her vacating the premises. “My father had a bypass surgery, and my mother underwent knee replacements. Due to these medical reasons, I sought an extension and later vacated the bungalow after clearing the dues. The additional penalty added later is notional and impractical. I have requested a waiver, and the matter is under process,” Nagpal said.
The official accommodation dispute
Nagpal was allotted bungalow B-17 (Type VI-A) on 19th March, 2015, after joining as Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to then Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh. She took possession of the house on 16th April, 2015, paying ₹6,600 a month plus water charges.
Her deputation in the Agriculture Ministry ended on 7th May, 2019, but she continued to occupy the premises while working in the Commerce Ministry and later, after returning to her cadre in 2021. She vacated the house in February this year after IARI sought Delhi Police’s assistance to recover possession.
Despite multiple reminders, Nagpal continued to stay in the house. In March 2022, IARI allowed her “as a special case” to retain the accommodation till April, warning that from May onwards, market rent of ₹92,000 per month would be charged. But she did not vacate the house even after that, leading the institute to initiate eviction proceedings under the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1971.
Eviction proceedings and damage charges
IARI issued several notices between 2022 and 2024, even seeking help from the Delhi Police to reclaim the property. Nagpal finally vacated the bungalow in February 2025, a day before her self-declared deadline of 1st March.
In a letter issued on 2nd May, 2025, IARI informed her that her request for extension “cannot be considered” since her allotment had already been cancelled. The institute demanded a payment of ₹1,63,57,550 as “damage charges” for the period between May 2022 and February 2025.
The amount was calculated using the government’s telescopic formula for unauthorised occupation. For Type VI-A accommodation, the damages start at ₹92,000 per month and increase progressively every month up to ₹4.6 lakh.
The Uttar Pradesh government forwarded Nagpal’s waiver request to the Ministry but did not make any recommendation of its own. Nagpal said she had already deposited an outstanding licence fee of ₹88,610 for May 2015-April 2022 and reiterated her request for waiver of damages.
IARI’s repeated reminders
Records show that IARI had been pressing Nagpal to vacate the bungalow since 2020, warning her several times that eviction would follow. It also cited an “acute shortage of residences” for its senior scientists as a reason for urgency. When she continued to stay, the institute sent a letter to the UP Chief Secretary in 2023, requesting him to instruct her to vacate.
In 2014, Durga Shakti Nagpal’s IAS husband, Abhishek Singh, was also in controversy during his posting as Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) in Mathura. He was suspended for forcing a Dalit government school teacher to perform sit-ups in his office as punishment for not completing election-related work on time.
