Court: Collector’s order to act against cops ‘beyond his powers’

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: The Aurangabad bench of Bombay High Court has termed the directive issued recently by Dharashiv district collector Sachin Ombase to the superintendent of police to initiate action against two cops of Anand Nagar police for booking and arresting revenue officials to be “beyond his powers”.The court was hearing a writ petition filed by inspector Hemant Kadam and assistant inspector Bhagwat Nagargoje of Anand Nagar police station challenging the district collector’s directive.Justice Kishore Sant ruled, “Prima facie, the order passed by the collector is beyond his powers. It suffers from impropriety.”“Superintendent of Police, Dharashiv is left with no option but to conduct enquiry and within two days the action is directed to be taken. There is no information whether such report is submitted or not. Prima facie, this court finds that the impugned communication suffers from arbitrariness and in exercise of powers without any authority,” he said.In the FIR registered by the Anandnagar police station on May 26, incumbent deputy collector Yogesh Kharmate, circle officer HS Kudale and talathi GR Shinde along with a police patil Chandrakant Magar were booked for criminal conspiracy, cheating and forgery. This was followed by the police arresting Magar, Shinde as well as Kudale, who were initially remanded in police custody, followed by judicial custody.Reacting to it, revenue staffers went on a three days’ strike and even staged a protest against the Dharashiv police. On May 29, the district collector directed superintendent of police Atul Kulkarni to initiate action against inspector Kadam as well API Nagargoje and submit a report within two days.Seeing the situation galvanising into a controversy, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar’s special range inspector general of police Virendra Mishra rushed to Dharashiv and told SP Kulkarni to carry out an inquiry and submit a report for initiating an action.Representing inspector Kada, senior counsel VD Salunke contested that the district magistrate has not only directed action against the petitioners for discharging duties, but also his action amounted to causing interference in administration of justice.After hearing the petition, the HC while issuing notices returnable on June 21, granted an ad-interim relief to the cops by staying the directives issued by the collector to the SP.The case pertains to a complaint lodged by one Ganesh Jadhav, a farmer from Baramgaon Budruk in Dharashiv district, against the police patil. While hearing the complaint, a forged Aadhar card and false affidavit was filed in the name of Jadhav stating that he was withdrawing his complaint against the police patil. On learning about it, Jadhav lodged a police complaint, resulting in FIR against the revenue officials.
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