Gujarat IPS officer Rahul Sharma was chargesheeted for indiscipline on Saturday. He was chargesheeted for misconduct in taking away CDs from the 2002 riots case papers. The chargesheet came a day after Home Mininister P Chidambaram said that the Centre is willing to intervene in the IPS officers versus Gujarat Government fight.
Sharma’s lawyer Mukul Sinha said, “This is shocking, we are studying the chargesheet. They have targeted any person who has spoken the truth about the riots.”
Chidambaram had reiterated that there are rules which allow the Centre to intervene but only at the behest of the officer concerned.
“Rules do provide for Central Government to take certain decisions but this depends on officer concerned. If officer concerned raises it we can,” said Chidambaram.
Meanwhile, Gujarat government spokesperson Jai Narayan Vyas accused the Centre of instigating the state IPS officers to revolt against the Modi government.
“The Union Home Minister has kept aside all federal relations. Chidambaram has made an inciting statement. This is nothing but creating a situation of revolt and asking officers to revolt against the government,” Vyas said.
Vyas said that Sharma cannot retain the copies of original documents (CDs) and it is not within the service rules. “Rahul Sharma was was given a show cause notice on January 27, 2011, and was given sufficient time to reply to it, but even after that Rahul did not work in accordance with law. Therefore, the Gujarat government served him with a chargesheet.”
Earlier on Friday, the Gujarat High Court Rahul Sharma’s petition seeking details of the grounds on which he was served a show cause notice by the state government in February this year over providing phone call records related to the 2002 riots.
Justice Abhilasha Kumari, hearing the case, said the court did not find it appropriate to interfere when an alternative statutory provision for appeal was available to the petitioner.
The petition also does not disclose violation of any fundamental rights of the petitioner, the court added.
Sharma, a DIG rank officer, was served the show cause notice by the state Home department on February 5, asking why he should not be chargesheeted for giving CDs containing the 2002 riots phone call records to various agencies, including the Nanavati Commission and the SIT, without government authorisation.
In his petition filed on Thursday, Sharma said when he asked the state government on what grounds was he issued a show cause on the matter, it refused to give him information regarding the same.
During the proceedings, Justice Kumari observed that some of the directions sought by Sharma were related to the show cause notice and it pertained to service matters.
She declined to entertain these prayers saying that she was not assigned to deal with service matters.
Following this, Sharma’s lawyer Mukul Sinha said he would not like to press for those prayers relating to service matters and sought permission of the court to approach the appropriate authority.
Source: IBN
