CUTTACK: THE Orissa High Court on Tuesday allowed the petition filed by IPS officer Satish Gajabhiye seeking quashing of the proceedings initiated against him while he was the SP of Malkangiri in 2008.
The 2002 batch IPS officer who is currently Principal of Urban Police and Traffic Training Institute in Bhubaneswar is still an SP ranked officer.
The case involved non-utilisation of government funds related to arrest and surrender of hardcore Maoists when Gajbhiye was the Malkangiri SP. He had moved the High Court in 2018 after the Central Administrative Tribunal declined to interfere in the midst of the proceedings.
While allowing his plea, the division Bench of Justice Sanju Panda and Justice SK Panigrahi ruled that proceeding which is not initiated without the avowed principles of natural justice cannot be a just proceeding and is void from the beginning.
The Bench said the proceedings have been initiated on the basis of the preliminary inquiry report submitted on May 19, 2012 by the DIG (Intelligence) who was the then supervising officer of the petitioner.
The appointment of the preliminary inquiry officer seems to be motivated and smacks of personal and professional bias. “The inquiring officer, who at the relevant time was DIG(South Western Range) Sunabeda, under which Malkangiri district falls, was a party to the transaction which he was asked to inquire. Therefore, the inquiring officer became judge of his own cause”, the Bench observed.
Further, the purported preliminary inquiry was conducted unilaterally without calling upon the petitioner to remain present which is wholly unreasonable, arbitrary and unjust. This is palpably a disturbing trend and contrary to the notion of good governance, the HC further observed, while directing the State government to confer all promotions and benefits to Satish Gajbhiye retrospectively vis-a-vis his batch mates within a month.