Friends,
I present before you a very strange case of Dhirendra Kumar Rai, who is a
Deputy Superintendent of Police in the U.P. Police. He was placed under
suspension on 26.5.2008 and the charge-sheet served on the same date. He was
charged of having failed on the occasion on July 21, 2007, while engaged in
operation against a dreaded criminal of UP, Thokiya alias Amibika Patel in
Chitrakoot. There while getting caught in adverse circumstances, he repeatedly
called the Senior Superintendent of Police, STF Amitabh Yash on mobile phone
No. 9415902216, the Addl. Director General of Police, STF Shailja Kant Mishra on
his mobile phone No. 9415902048 and Dr. Pritender Singh, Superintendent of
Police, Chitrakoot on his mobile phone No. 9415902832 for additional force but
no force turned up and six of his men got killed. Rai was placed in suspension
for having failed miserably in his duty.
Since then Rai has been running from pillar to post but to no avail. Recently
in Writ Petition No - 768 of 2008 the Allahabad High Court Lucknow Bench gave
very clear orders to reinstate him. They also awarded him a cost of Rs. 2
lakhs, which is a very rare gesture. The main grievance of D K Rai is that he
has
been persecuted by the government only because he had interrogated the Chief
Minister of the State Ms. Mayawati as a CBI officer.
High Court looked
at the service career and found it exemplary as Rai was involved with Brahmadutt
Dwivedi murder case, Taj Heritage Corridor and
Century Scam case etc.
In this
particular case the High Court found that Rai had made no less than 29 calls to
all police officials right from the ADG of his branch to the local Station
Officer. Still no reinforcement and later Rai was also indicted as being
responsible for the deaths. What an irony.
During the
pleadings, the State Counsel wanted to raise the issue of the statutory
discretion
exercised by the government and hence the writ petition not being maintainable.
The High court went from Webster's Encyclopedia to Rooke case in 1598 to SC
judgement in Union of India v. Kuldeep
Singh to conclude that Discretion is to discern between right and wrong; and
therefore, discretion should be exercised not in arbitrary, whimsical and
fanciful manner.
Similarly about
the power of Judicial review, the High Court did not accept the now dying
Wednesbury principle of non-interference
saying that Supreme Court in some of the recent cases has departed from
Wednesbury principle.
About facts, the
High Court was most scathing. It made very sweeping comments like-
“However, a plain reading of the report of the Superintendent of Police seems
to be one sided. There is not even a whisper as to why reinforcement force was
not sent to the petitioner to help the petitioner's team whole of the day. “
“It is horrible
to note that in spite of receipt of call when the encounter was going on, the
Senior Superintendent of Police, STF admittedly had not provided any assistance
on the pretext of engagement in operation of Daduwa gang. In case he was not in
a position to provide back-up to the petitioner's team, then he should have
requested to other authorities to send the reinforcement but the same was not
done and burden has been shifted to the petitioner's shoulder with regard to
causality of six persons who died in the ambush.”
Thankfully for Rai,
there were people like Ghanshyam Ahirwar and Shailjakant Mishra in the police
force who did not buckle before the pressure. Ahirwar, Circle Officer of the
area said loudly that he had not sent any report against Rai forcing the State
government to change their stand
that it was not Ahirwar but one Akhilesh Narayan Singh who has held an enquiry
and submitted a report. Again, Shailja Kant, ADG of STF said in a statement
before the enquiry committee that the petitioner had duly informed the
authorities about the situation and the allegation raised against the
petitioner is false and not correct. He even said that in spite of information
communicated, local police had not arrived to the scene of occurrence.
Even fabrications
and falsifications were presumably made in the records. The High Court says- “In
the report dated 1.9.2007 of the Circle Officer, City, Chitrakoot, the date of
occurrence has been corrected and converted from 22.2.2007 to 22.7.2007. Fluid
seems to have been used and the word, “Kshetradhikari, Nagar” has been
substituted by, “Prabhari Nirikshak, Karvi”.
High Court also
says that- “Things seem to have been managed against the petitioner by
interpolation
of records.”
The High Court
concludes that- “In view of above, the overwhelming evidence on record shows
that the authorities have taken decision to charge the petitioner on unfounded
grounds by fabrication of records suffering from bias - may be for political or
other unforeseen reasons.”
It also says that “Virtually a fraud has been committed deliberately to
initiate disciplinary proceedings against the petitioner.”
Look at the pain
in the wordings of the High Court- “Action taken against the petitioner does
not only suffer from malice in law but seems to be oppressive.”
Based on this conclusion, High Court declared not only Rai to be reinstated but
also ordered the State government to give a fine of Rs 2 lakh to Rai. It has
also ordered the Chief Secretary of U.P. to recover the cost from the persons
who are responsible to initiate departmental proceedings against the petitioner
on the basis of fraudulent records by holding an enquiry in accordance with law
and to constitute a Committee and hold an enquiry for the lack of assistance to
the petitioner by not providing necessary back-up with police force.
So, this is what you call Justice.
Dr Nutan Thakur,
Secretary,
IRDS,
Lucknow
# 94155-34525
