Suspended DGP-level officer Rajesh Das has approached the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) seeking to set aside the order of suspension passed by the State government on him and consequently direct the authorities concerned to reinstate him in service with all attendant benefits, including seniority and other benefits.
Mr. Rajesh Das is an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer who served for 31 years. He was appointed by the State government as a Special DGP in October 2020, just prior to the Assembly elections. Mr. Das was accused of sexually harassing a woman IPS officer on February 21. He is facing action under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redress) Act, 2013 (POSH) and facing trial in Chief Judicial Magistrate Court.
Filing an application before CAT, he submitted that the facts transpired till date in pursuance of the complaint, with evidence and the proceedings before the Internal Complaints Committee(ICC), were conducted in violation of the principles of natural justice and in violation of the mandate of POSH.
The entire proceedings of the ICC Committee and the consequential report was vitiated for not following the due process of law, he said.
Mr. Das said the charge memo on that basis was therefore perverse and the suspension was ordered based on orders of the High Court.
However, when the Supreme Court had cleared the High Court’s adverse observations and directions and further recorded his cooperation as well as proof of not tampering, the respondents (authorities) should have fairly reinstated him by taking note of the orders of the highest court.
Hence the entire exercise was mala fide and was infested with arbitrariness, he said.
The Central Administrative Tribunal directed the State government to ensure that applicant got subsistence allowance and ordered notices to the respondents, including the Home Secretary and Director General of Police, returnable by December 20.
