Y Puran Kumar, a 2001-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of Haryana has raised objections on constitution of a panel of three retired IAS officer set up to probe charges that Kumar had levelled against additional chief secretary (ACS) home TVSN Prasad.
Y Puran Kumar, presently working as Inspector General of Police (IGP) (Telecommunications) with additional charge of the Emergency Response Support System (ERSS), has been lodging complaints against the IAS officer of humiliation and harassment. He had been seeking permission from chief secretary Sanjeev Kaushal for lodging FIR against the officer under the provisions of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. By December 18, 2023, the IPS officer lodged four more complaints against the IAS officer. He had also approached National Commission for Scheduled Castes, seeking registration of an FIR.
The state government, on February 8, formed a committee of three former IAS officers — Rajan Gupta, Navraj Sandhu and PK Das -— to probe into the charges levelled by Kumar.
What is the objection of Y Puran Kumar
Kumar has sent a representation to the state government objecting the probe being conducted by retired IAS officers. He also contended that the committee doesn't have representation of any officer belonging to the Scheduled Caste in the committee.
The IPS officer said that since the matter is related or atrocities under SCs/STs (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, which is a special Act…, no preliminary inquiry should be made.
“Also, officer, who can conduct investigation in such cases has be of a rank specified in the Act,” Y Puran Kumar said.
Kumar, while quoting the judgment of the Supreme Court in Lalita Kumari vs the state of Uttar Pradesh, said that “a preliminary inquiry, if any, has to be concluded in one week”.
Government says, exercise is just administrative fact finding
According to officials, the state government has just undertaken exercise for administrative fact finding to know the factual postin of the allegation.
“The statutory inquiry will completely dependent on the facts which come out in the report,” said a senior officer.
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