BHUBANESWAR: The State government has ordered an enquiry against an OPS officer for allegedly instructing his staff not to receive an RTI application sent by registered post six years ago. He has been asked to submit a written reply to the Home department within 30 days.
The OPS officer Padarbinda Tripathy, now the Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) of Balasore Sadar, has been charged with gross misconduct, dereliction of duty and lack of devotion to duty during his incumbency as IIC of Mahakalpada police station in Kendrapara district in 2016.
Sources said he had instructed police station staff not to receive the RTI application of Prasanta Kumar Routray and Sushree Nayak, which were sent by registered post to the IIC of Mahakalapada PS.
The postman of Mahakalapada post office was unable to deliver the letters on April 4 and April 16, 2016 and returned the RTI application to the senders. In order to hide his fault and create false evidence that he was not present at the headquarters on both the dates, Tripathy had allegedly made interpolations and manipulations in the station diary to show himself out on duty to Jamboo outpost and Kendrapara Town respectively.
“This is a conduct unbecoming on the part of a responsible police officer holding the post of in-charge of a police station. The omission and commission by Tripathy amounts to gross misconduct and dereliction of duty for his failure to maintain due decorum of conduct and devotion to duty as envisaged in Rule-3 of the Odisha Government Servants Conduct Rules 1959,” stated the articles of charges issued by the department.
As the contentions of Tripathy were challenged by the complainants, as he has not supervised any case during the period from April 1 to 24, 2016 as revealed from his monthly summary of work along with some manipulations in the station diary entries. The then Chief Information Commissioner had directed the State government to take action against the officer found guilty in the alleged acts of insertions, manipulations and tampering in the station diary and send a compliance to the Commission.
During investigation, it was found that he manipulated station diary entries made by diary charge officer sub-inspector Suryanarayan Sathpathy and ASI Akshaya Kumar Rout to justify the refusal to receive the postal envelopes. The alteration in the attendance, the difference in the spacing on entries and handwriting in between the original entry clearly established that Tripathy directed for insertions and manipulation of station diary entries to falsely show that he was not present in the police station.