IPS officer Saurabh Tripathi, who was suspended for more than 15 months in connection with an extortion case, has been reinstated by the Maharashtra government. The decision was taken after the state’s Suspension Review Committee, headed by Chief Secretary Manoj Saunik, met last week and decided to revoke Tripathi’s suspension. Now, the Police Establishment Board will decide his new posting. He is likely to get a non-executive posting.
Let it be noted that Tripathi was the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), zone 2, when his name was added to an FIR registered at LT Marg police station last year. Bhuleshwar Angadia Association (traditional couriers who deliver cash or jewellery from one trader to another) had registered a complaint against Inspector Om Wangate, Inspector Nitin Kadam, and Assistant Inspector Samadhan Jamdade at LT Marg police station on February 18, 2022. The trio were charged with sections dealing with extortion, robbery and wrongful restraint of the Indian Penal Code. A preliminary inquiry by the then Additional Commissioner of Police (south), Dilip Sawant, found that the three had in the first week of December 2021 extorted ₹19 lakh from Angadias in South Mumbai after threatening to report them to the income tax department. Mr. Tripathi went incommunicado the very next day of the FIR. His name was added in FIR after Wangate allegedly revealed on being interrogated that they were acting on Tripathi’s instructions.
The three officers were arrested on March 16 last year and in October, the Police Establishment Board reinstated Wangte, Kadam and Jamdade. Whereas, Tripathi’s anticipatory bail was denied by session but the High Court granted anticipatory bail to Tripathi on grounds that he had cooperated with the investigators and his custodial investigation was not required.
His request for reinstatement was rejected twice by the committee, headed by the then chief secretary Manukumar Srivastava. Recently, he again approached the panel, citing a Supreme Court judgement that said an officer can’t be kept under suspension for more than three months.
