Tamil Nadu cadre IPS officer Ashish Rawat (IPS:2014:TN) received major relief from the Madras High Court after its Madurai Bench set aside an order passed by Thanjavur’s Principal Sessions Judge against him when he was serving as Thanjavur SP. The court also quashed connected proceedings against the IPS officer.
T.S. Karthikeyan, an advocate by profession, had filed a complaint against Rawat seeking a direction to the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) to register a case and investigate his complaint.
It was alleged that the then SP misused his official position, cut and removed teak trees worth several crores for his personal benefit, and misappropriated several crores of rupees from the account of the police welfare society.
The lower court had forwarded the complaint to the DVAC with a direction to register the FIR against Rawat and to file a final report. The DVAC and the state, in turn, filed petitions challenging the court direction.
Justice B. Pugalendhi of the Madras HC said it was a settled law that the court could not direct the registration of the FIR and investigation in a mechanical manner.
However, the HC noted a perusal of the lower court order revealed that the complaint against the IPS officer had been entertained by the Sessions Judge in a casual manner.
The High Court wondered that the statute provided protection to public servants under the Prevention of Corruption Act, and without ensuring compliance with any of the provisions and hearing the public servant concerned, the Principal Sessions Judge had passed the order in a mechanical manner.
The HC thus set aside the order passed by the Principal Sessions Judge and quashed the connected proceeding to constitute a committee and delegate the powers to inspect the place of occurrence to it.
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