Whims of UP: 29 cops suspended in 4 yrs, 0 found guilty -Governance Now

Whims of UP: 29 cops suspended in 4 yrs, 0 found guilty

RTI information reveals 2 of 5 IPS and 9 of 24 PPS officers exonerated; charges against others still under process

Pankaj Kumar | April 29, 2013

That Uttar Pradesh runs on a bit of whim and oodles on fancy of the ruling dispensation is perhaps not a theme open for debate any longer. So days after the state’s textile minister, Shiv Kumar Beria, warned that any police official who does not listen to him will be sacked, it emerges that at least five IPS officers and 24 provisional police service (PPS) officers were suspended in four years till February 13 this year without basis.

None of the 29 officers have yet been found guilty.

According to information received by RTI activist Nutan Thakur, two of five officers were “completely exonerated”, while charges against the other three are still under process.

The IPS officers suspended between January 1, 2009 and February 13, 2013 are Ajay Kumar Mishra, OP Sagar, DK Rai, SP Khiri, JN Singh and RP Chaturvedi.
The then DIG of Meerut, JN Singh was suspended on April 26, 2011 but got reinstated within two months. He was not even issued a formal chargesheet.
Fellow IPS Ajay Kumar Mishra was the senior superintendent of police in Etawah district when he was suspended on May 24, 2009. While his suspension continued for 15 months, he, too, was found not guilty in a departmental inquiry.

The charges against the three other officers — Sagar was SP of Pratapgarh when suspended on June 26, 2012, Rai was SP of Khiri when suspension order was effected on June 14, 2011, while RP Chaturvedi was SP of Jalaun when he was suspended on December 1, 2012 — are still under process.

Similar is the story with the PPS officers suspended, the RTI query has revealed. Among them are eight additional SPs and 16 deputy SPs. Here again, nine officers were found not guilty in a departmental inquiry. These are additional SPs Kushhar, KK Asthana, Ashok Kumar Verma and Dr BN Tiwari; and deputy SPs Jalim Singh, Ashok Kumar Singh, Ram Shankar Dwivedi, Santosh Kumar Singh and Mukul Dwivedi.

Incidentally, BN Tiwari was suspended as SP (traffic) Agra on September 25, 2012 following complaints that he got his shoelaces tied by a police constable but was reinstated on October 19 after a preliminary inquiry found him not guilty.

While the law says officers can be suspended only when serious departmental action is contemplated against them, RTI information obtained by Thakur seems to reinforce the point that in UP senior police officers are suspended on the whims and fancies of the powerful politicians.

"Suspension is a stigma which several officers come across without any reason. But suspensions must be applied with seriousness, as a casual approach defeats the whole purpose of suspending an officer,” Thakur told Governance Now over phone on Monday.

Comments

Other News

India lost Rs 52,000 crore to cyber fraud in five years: DoT

India has lost more than Rs 52,000 crore to cyber fraud over the last five years, officials have revealed. Out of approximately 60 lakh cyber fraud complaints received, more than 3,000 cases have been resolved and six cyber fraud setups have been busted. On the occ

India must not wait for its own Ella

In many Indian cities, children learn to wear masks before they are old enough to understand why. That reality should alarm us far more than it does. In 2020, nine-year-old Ella Adoo Kissi Debrah became the first person in the world to have air pollution officially recognized a

An ode to the cradle of humankind

The Alphabets of Africa: Poems By Abhay K. Vintage Classics, 280 pages, ₹499.00 Abhay K

Ahmedabad district railway network to be expanded

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by prime minister Narendra Modi, on Wednesday approved the Ahmedabad (Sarkhej) – Dholera Semi High-Speed Double Line project of Ministry of Railways with total cost of Rs. 20,667 crore (approx.). It will be Indian Railways 1st semi high-speed project

Indian Ocean more contested than ever: Western Naval Command Chief

The Indian Ocean is becoming increasingly contested and strategically significant as the Indo-Pacific emerges as the defining geopolitical theatre of the 21st century, Vice Admiral Krishna Swaminathan, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Western Naval Command, has said. Spe

Why the judiciary needs much more than four more judges

India has a particular form of governance theatre: the bold declaration that appears to be action but is actually a way of avoiding action. The Union Cabinet on May 5 approved a Bill to increase the sanctioned strength of the Supreme Court from 34 to 38. The decision has been touted as a step toward judici