NEW DELHI: The Centre on Wednesday sacked two women IPS officers, including one summoned by a Ghaziabad court in an alleged extra-judicial killing, from the government services for "unauthorised leave" for a long period in contravention of service rules.
The Centre terminated the services of Marie Lou Fernandes (1991-batch, Maharashtra cadre) and Jyoti Belur (1993-batch, Uttarakhand cadre).
Officials said their termination orders issued by the Union Home Ministry were based on Section 7 (2-a) of the service rules by terming their unauthorised absence from duty as “deemed resignation”.
The particular section of the service rules applies when an officer is on unauthorised leave for over a year.
Marie Lou Fernandes (50) has been absent from duty since 2005 when she was posted as DCP (Zone-VII) in Mumbai Police while Jyoti Belur (48), has been on non-sanctioned leave since 2001. She was originally an officer from Uttar Pradesh cadre but was allotted Uttarakhand cadre after the creation of the hill State in 2000.
While Belur is suspected to be residing in the United Kingdom, Fernandes had in her reply said she is pursuing a PhD programme in the United States.
Belur is an accused in a fake encounter case which took place in Ghaziabad in 1996 in which four persons were killed. Despite repeated summons by the court, Jyoti Belur did not turn up for appearance as she had moved to the UK but a CBI court in Ghaziabad on Monday pronounced four other policemen guilty in the case.
Jyoti Belur’s service revolver was allegedly used in the fake encounter and at least one bullet was fired from the weapon during her stint as Circle Officer Modi Nagar, Ghaziabad. The criminal case against her is still continuing pending trial.
The latest decision comes weeks after two other senior IPS officers, Mayank Sheel Chohan (1998-batch, Union Territory cadre) and Raj Kumar Dewangan (1992-batch, Chhattisgarh cadre) were dismissed from service by the Ministry for non-performance.