The Jammu & Kashmir High Court has stayed the controversial demotion of a senior CRPF cadre official SS Sandhu, Inspector General (Operations), Kashmir. The Union Home Ministry had demoted Sandhu in a “blatantly arbitrary” manner even without hearing him.
Sandhu was duly promoted as Inspector General on September 11, 2012 and was subjected to a number of transfers before being demoted as Deputy Inspector General on April 3. Sandhu was demoted and asked to join the Directorate General of the CRPF. In his petition, Sandhu had prayed for continuation as IG (Operations), Kashmir and the court granted him the relief on Wednesday.
“The impugned orders (of Sandhu’s demotion) suffer from the vice of being product of malicious/malafide exercise of power calculated to achieve/attain an illegal and unauthorised purpose forbidden by law, thus vitiated in law and therefore unsustainable and liable to be quashed/interdicted under appropriate writ of this court,” Sandhu said in his petition.
He also contended that his demotion was “totally arbitrary, invidiously discriminatory, violating with impunity not only the Constitutional guarantees of the petitioner but also the minimum required principles of natural justice apart from being tainted with malice and in gross contempt of the judgement and order passed by this court…”
In its order, the court said, “While considering rival submissions and the records, interest of the petitioner are to be protected after all he has been promoted vide order dated 10.09.2012, whether withdrawal of such promotion is permissible is a question to be determined. Until such determination, interest of the petitioner cannot be jeopardized, hence operation of the order impugned providing for withdrawal of the promotion and consequential order (of his transfer) shall remain in abeyance.”
Sandhu was duly promoted after being declared as Shape-1 medical category and his promotion was vetted by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet headed by the Prime Minister. However, the officer was subjected to a number of medical examinations in contravention of the standing orders regulating healthcare system of the paramilitary.
His medical record was tinkered with and Union Home Secretary RK Singh had ordered action against the CRPF doctors involved but instead of punishing the guilty medical officials, Sandhu was made to face the music.