IPS officer penalized in postal order theft case

PATNA: A 1994-batch IPS officer, Amitabh Kumar Das, has been found guilty in connection with the postal order robbery case worth crores in Patna by an inquiry team constituted by the state home (police) department. Subsequently the department, with the consent of the UPSC, has decided to lower his salary by two grades for the next two years. Das is presently posted as SP (rail) at Jamalpur in Munger district.

According to the inquiry team's findings, Das, during his tenure as SP (rail), Patna, between August 2001 and May 2003, had shown negligence towards his duty. He did not supervise the case and didn't even give report-2 in connection with the case related to theft of postal orders lodged with the Patna junction railway police station. The report said that he mishandled the case and helped the accused to get a clean chit.

Following the punishment imposed, Das would get a salary two grades lower than his current salary for the next two years and he would be disallowed any increment from the department till the punishment period is over.

However, when contacted, Das told TOI, "I got clean chit in the postal order case way back in 2008. In the inquiry report submitted by the 1974-batch IAS officer, S P Keshav, who is now retired, it was clearly mentioned that it was simple issue of pending case and nowhere was it found that I had any wrong intention behind not giving report-2. Hence, I shall challenge the decision of state government at the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), Patna bench."

He said, "Presently I have been working as an Election Commission observer in Gujarat. I have no idea how could a closed case be reopened in the absence of the officer concerned and, moreover, according to the Election Commission of India (ECI) regulations no state government can take such decision when the officer is working for ECI."

He added, "I had not only got a clean chit in the case, but the state government was also ordered by the CAT to grant me promotion. I had filed a case against the Bihar chief secretary and the home secretary for contempt of the order of CAT with the CAT's Patna bench. A hearing would take place in a couple of days."

"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 and this new punishment order is a follow-up of the CM's grudge," he said.

Source:-The Times of India