Dismissed police officer moves HC

Chennai, Jun 5 (UNI) Dismissed police officer K Premkumar today filed a petition in the Chennai High Court challenging the order of the Home Department dismissing him from service.

The petition is likely to come up for hearing tomorrow.

In his petition, Premkumar sought to quash an order passed by the Home Department dated May 21, 2007 and demanded the Tamil Nadu government to reinstate him in service with backwages and continuity in service.

He contended that the dismissal order was the result of bias and malafides and consequently the order was liable to be set aside. The impugned order had been passed at the instance of ADGP, CBCID, who were inimically disposed towards him since he was in charge of the investigation into the Amaravathi Bridge scandal where Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, Minister Ko Si Mani and Home Secretary S Malathi were the accused, he alleged.

He argued that the extract of the G O would clearly show the fact which led to his conviction and had already been examined in detail by the government and he had been exonerated in the same incident.

Once if an order of exoneration had been passed after a full fledged enquiry on the basis of the very same facts which led to the conviction, it was not open to the state government again to examine those facts and impose the penalty of dimissal from service. None could be tried twice for the same offence, he added.

He submitted that the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court passed an order on April three 2007 filed by a private person, convicting and sentencing him for one month simple imprisonment for the incident (allegedly illtreating and torturing an ex-service man Nalla Kamma) which happened 25 years ago.

Aggrieved by the order, he preferred a criminal appeal before the Supreme Court. The apex court pending SLP passed an order exempting him from surrendering before the court on April 13, 2007.

However, the trial court issued NBW against him on April 24, 2007.

Subsequently, the apex court had granted the special leave and bail on May seven, 2007. Since the state government could not achieve its object to put him behind bars by one or other way, it had passed the impugned order, dismissing him from service, he contended.

He said the conviction itself was not the ground for dismissal but it was the facts leading to the conviction which have to be taken into account for imposing penalty. The impugned action was taken to liquidate Sankararaman murder case as per the wishes of the Chief Minister, he alleged.

UNI