What are the options before a civil servants 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. But, many a bureaucrats have been suffering the consequences of giving this flat answer. Two of them have been under suspension for past six years, services of one of them have been terminated (only to be restored by the judiciary) while another’s career is o 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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Judiciary has come to the rescue of Chhatisgarh cadre IPS officer of 1994 batch, Mr Gurjinder Pal Singh. Chhatisgarh High Court on November 13 this year quashed all three criminal cases against him in ‘fabricated cases’ lodged against him by 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 neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, another IPS officer Jasvir Singh of 1992-batch is under suspension for past six year. Charge against him : proceeding on leave without getting it sanctioned. Real reason for suspension – as SSP of Maharajganj district he had arrested then Gorakhpur SSP 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 his suspended and for next two and half years didn’t constitute the mandatory inquiry committee to into the charges against him. 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 Intelligence Bureau Mr Yashovardhan Jha Azad.
On the other hand in Chhatisgarh, Mr GP Singh’s ordeal though hasn’t ended yet. The state government has appealed the Supreme Court against an earlier HC order staying criminal proceedings. Both him and Mr Jasvir Singh have a reputation of 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 IG of 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 subjected to political pressure to implicate certain people including a 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 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 Total value as Rs. 7.32/- lakhs belonged to Mr Singh while property no 3-6 valued at Rs. 47.6 lakhs) belonged to father of 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 1 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 SBI colony which recorded the recovery of the said gold. Mr Singh’s case was argued in the 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 the purpose of harassment, with no tangible evidence to support the serious charges, Mr GP Singh is still awaiting reinstatement in service with full honours. But, will the government ever be able to compensate for the mental and physical harassment faced by him during past six years, not to say about the trauma faced by his family members, two of whom are not alive to see his exoneration.
