What are the options before a civil servant when he is asked by the political executive to do something against the rule of the law? The answer to a layman may be a simple – No, because they owe their allegiance to the constitution not to an individual or a party or a government. However, many bureaucrats have been suffering the consequences of giving this flat answer. Two of them have been under suspension for the past six years; the services of one of them have been terminated (only to be restored by the judiciary) while another’s career is on the line. And they are not rookies. Both of them were Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) and should have been DGP, the top position for an IPS, by now.
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The judiciary has come to the rescue of the Chhattisgarh cadre IPS officer of the 1994 batch, Mr Gurjinder Pal Singh. Chhattisgarh High Court, on November 13 this year, quashed all three criminal cases against him in ‘fabricated cases’ lodged against him by the previous Bhupesh Baghel government. Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) too had earlier ordered his reinstatement into the service with all benefits due to him. His only fault was that he refused to fabricate some people, including a former Chief Minister, in false cases, at the behest of the ruling party at that time.
In neighboring Uttar Pradesh, another IPS officer Jasvir Singh, 1992 batch, has been under suspension for the past six years. The charge against him- proceeding on leave without getting it sanctioned. The real reason for suspension – as the SSP of Maharajganj district, he had arrested then Gorakhpur Member of Parliament, Yogi Adityanath, for inciting communal violence in 2007. Later, in January 2019, he spoke to a digital news platform justifying his actions. By now Yogi Adityanath had become the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. He got him suspended and for the next two and half years, didn’t constitute the mandatory inquiry committee. Now, the news has started floating that Mr. Jasvir Singh is being retired compulsorily. “The compulsory retirement provision is for non-performers and if strictly applied, 70% of IAS and IPS officers would be covered under it”, says former Special Director of the Intelligence Bureau, Mr. Yashovardhan Jha Azad.
On the other hand in Chhattisgarh, Mr GP Singh’s ordeal hasn’t ended yet. The state government has appealed to the Supreme Court against an earlier HC order stating criminal proceedings. Both he and Mr. Jasvir Singh have a reputation for being very honest, upright, and hardworking officers.
Mr. GP Singh is a gallantry award winner and recipient of several commemorations and recommendations. His Annual Confidential Report (ACR) has mostly been marked 9 out of 10 by his superiors. His troubles started after he was posted as the IG of the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) and Anti-corruption Bureau (ACB) on February 27, 2019. The state government had changed barely three months ago with Mr. Bhupesh Baghel of the Congress taking over as Chief Minister on December 17, 2018.
While investigating the high-profile Civil Supplies Scam worth over several thousand crores, Mr. Singh was subjected to political pressure to implicate certain people including former Chief Minister, Raman Singh, and to weaken the case against some others who had already been charge-sheeted.
The Chhattisgarh High Court bench comprising Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Ravindra Kumar Agrawal ruled in favor of Singh, citing the lack of substantial evidence and procedural lapses in the cases. It also quashed three FIRs filed against 1994-batch IPS officer GP Singh in connection with charges of disproportionate assets, extortion, and sedition.
The court said that the person in whose possession 2 Kg gold bars were seized, was not made an accused in the case, the scooty in which the gold had been concealed, too, hadn’t been impounded, the FIR in the extortion case was lodged six years after the incident, in sedition case, original documents had never been produced in the court, the pieces of shredded documents too hadn’t been found inside Mr GP Singh’s home. In short, there was no credible evidence against the IPS officer.
Disproportionate Assets Case:
The prosecution has listed 17 properties purportedly belonging to Mr GP Singh. His counsel proved to the court that only two properties with a total value of Rs. 7.32/- lakhs belonged to Mr. Singh while property no 3-6, valued at Rs. 47.6 lakhs, belonged to the father of the petitioner while property number 7 to 17 in the FIR were concocted by the prosecution.
The court noted that the person from whose custody a one kg gold bar was seized was not made an accused under the Prevention of Corruption Act. Additionally, the scooty from which the gold bar was recovered was not registered in Singh’s name. The prosecution failed to produce the hard disk of the DVR of the CCTV system installed in the SBI colony which recorded the recovery of the said gold. Mr. Singh’s case was argued in court by his counsel, Himanshu Pandey.
Extortion Case: The court found that the FIR was filed after a delay of six years, and the complainant did not have any direct connection with Singh, nor was he known to the officer.
Sedition Case: The court observed that the original documents allegedly containing seditious content were never produced before the court. The torn pieces of the documents were not recovered from Mr. GP Singh’s house but from outside it.
Though the court ruled that the FIRs appeared to have been filed solely for harassment, with no tangible evidence to support the serious charges, Mr. GP Singh is still awaiting reinstatement in service with full honors. But, will the government ever be able to compensate for the mental and physical harassment faced by him during the past six years, not to mention the trauma faced by his family members, two of whom are not alive to see his exoneration?
