Lokayukta for action against ex-Commissioner of Police

Pradeep Sharma

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 12

State Lokayukta Justice Nawal Kishore Agarwal has recommended departmental action against senior IPS officer Alok Mittal for dereliction of duty while serving as Commissioner of Police, Gurugram.

The action against Mittal, a 1993-batch IPS officer of Haryana cadre on deputation as IGP in the National Investigation Agency, New Delhi, has been recommended for allegedly delaying action on a complaint against Sukhbir Jaunapuria, BJP MP from Tonk-Sawai Madhopur in Rajasthan and former MLA from Sohna in Gurugram district, for over a year and a half.

Ramanand Yadav, a Gurugram resident, had complained against Jaunapuria, alleging cheating, fraud and forgery in a case related to a real estate transaction. Yadav had alleged that the Gurugram police were dilly-dallying on registration of a case against Jaunapuria under political pressure.

The order asserted that every police official who conducted the inquiry opined that the complaint, prima facie, mentioned commission of cognisable offence.

“When a police officer of the rank of Commissioner of Police takes more than a year and a half for conducting preliminary inquiry and, that too, without deciding the same, it certainly creates doubts in the mind of the public at large as well the complainant that the same had been done with some ulterior motive, either to shelter a private person or hide incompetence,” the order asserted.

“The respondent is guilty of keeping the matter pending with him for a period of more than a year and a half without deciding the same one way of the other, thereby depriving the complainant the opportunity of approaching the court within a reasonable time, and is thus guilty of dereliction of duty,” read the 16-page order of the Lokayukta.

However, Justice Aggarwal dropped charges against Navdeep Singh Virk, who succeeded Mittal and during whose tenure the complaint was rejected, as he had decided the fate of the complaint in around 15 days.