Amitabh Kumar Das. Telegraph picture

Patna, Jan. 29: In a major setback to the state government, the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) on Friday quashed the departmental proceedings initiated against a senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of Bihar cadre.

A division bench comprising Rekha Kumari (member, judicial) and A.K. Jain (member, administration) quashed the departmental proceedings initiated by the state government against Amitabh Kumar Das, commandant of the 9th battalion of the Bihar Military Police (BMP).

Das, who is at present posted at Jamalpur in Maoist-affected Munger district, had moved the CAT against the state government’s order to initiate departmental proceedings against him.

Das’s counsel Jayant Kumar Karn said that the tribunal quashed the proceedings against the IPS officer saying that the action against the officer in question was “an abuse of the process”.

While disposing of the petition filed on behalf of the IPS officer, the CAT observed that the disciplinary authority had failed to form its independent opinion.

“The remission of the matter for further inquiry is unjustified because it would amount to the second inquiry on the same set of charges resulting in abuse of the process.”

The CAT also expressed surprise over the move to initiate departmental proceedings against Das after 18 months of the submission of the report of the conducting officer appointed by the government.

Das, a 1994-batch IPS officer, was given a clean chit by the conducting officer, S.P Keshav, who was assigned to conduct the departmental proceedings against him after a girl charged him with sexually exploiting her on the pretext of marriage.

Keshav, a 1974-batch IAS officer, in his report submitted to the government in January 2009, however, found no evidence against Das to corroborate the charges levelled by the girl, said to be the daughter of a retired DIG.

Keshav was then posted as commissioner of departmental inquiries.

The government had initiated departmental proceedings against Das in 2007.

Das’s counsel pleaded that the government initiated departmental proceedings against the IPS officer “out of vendetta”.

He told the CAT that the incumbent chief minister of Bihar Nitish Kumar holds a grudge against the IPS officer as the latter had sent a detailed report to the then state government against Kumar, who was then the railway minister at the Centre.

Das’s report hinted at alleged politician-criminal nexus in the awarding of railway contracts worth several crores of rupees in Bihar and UP.

“I had worked as a whistle blower and exposed scams in the railways when I was posted as the superintendent of rail police in Patna. Contracts worth several crores were awarded to notorious criminals of Bihar during Nitish Kumar’s tenure as the railway minister,” Das had earlier told the tribunal.