HC declines to stay GO dismissing police officer

Chennai, Jun 12 (UNI) Madras High Court today declined to stay the operation of the Tamil Nadu Government order, dismissing from service police officer K Premkumar, earlier investigating a murder case in which Seer of the Kanchi mutt Jayendra Saraswathi was the prime accused.

Mr Justice S Manikumar, who declined to stay the order of the Home Department dated May 21, 2007, however admitted the petition filed by Premkumar, seeking to set aside his dismissal order and ordered notice to the Home Secretary, DGP, ADGP and Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission.

In his petition, Premkumar submitted that the impugned order was passed at the instance of ADGP, CBCID who was inimically disposed towards him as he was put in charge of the investigation into the Amaravathi Bridge Scandal, in which Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi was the first accused, minister Ko Si Mani the second accused and Home Secretary S Malathi the third accused.

His dismissal was the result of this biased and malafides and consequently the order was liable to be set aside, he submitted.

A perusal of the extract of the G O would clearly show that the fact which led to the conviction have already been examined in detail by the government and he has been exonerated in respect of very same incident. Once an order of exoneration has been passed after a full fledged inquiry on the basis of the very same facts which have led to the conviction, it was not open to the government to re-examine those facts and impose the penalty of dismissal from service, he added.

He submitted that the Madurai Bench of this Court had on April 3, 2007 convicted and sentenced him to one month SI in the Nallakaman case for the incident (illtreating a ex-service man), which happened 25 years ago. Aggrieved he filed SLP and the Supreme Court while granting leave, granted bail on May 7, 2007. Since the State Government could not achieve their object to put him behind bars by one or other way, it passed the impugned order. The conviction itself was not the ground for dismissal but it was the facts which had led to the conviction, have to be taken into account for imposing penalty. The impugned order was to liquidate Sankararaman murder case as per the wishes of the Chief Minister, he submitted.

UNI