‘2 cops suspended in Palghar case’
The state government on Wednesday informed the Bombay high court that it had suspended two policemen, including an IPS officer, in the Palghar case. In the case, the police had wrongfully arrested two girls for posting their views on Facebook about the bandh that was observed in Mumbai following Bal Thackeray’s funeral in November last year.
A division bench of Justices P.V. Hardas and A.M. Thipsay was hearing a petition filed by activist Ketan Tirodkar, seeking the court’s direction to the state to take punitive action against the policemen for the wrongful arrests.
In a previous hearing, the court had questioned the police as to what action it had taken. The state filed an affidavit on Wednesday stating that Ravindra Sonegaonkar, the superintendent of police (rural Thane) and Srikant Pingale, senior police inspector of Palghar, had both been suspended based on the report.
“The government has taken prompt, effective and diligent action against erring cops. A departmental enquiry against these two are under process (sic),” the affidavit stated.
Observing that the prayer in the public interest litigation has already been fulfilled, the court asked the petitioner to file a rejoinder within two weeks.
Mr Tirodkar had brought to the court’s notice an article that had appeared in a newspaper, which stated that there has been no action taken against the police for the arrests. According to the report, the inspector-general of police (Konkan division) Sukhwinder Singh had conducted an inquiry and submitted it to the state. The report stated that three police officers did not act in time to stop the arrests.
Mr Tirodkar also informed the court that chief minister Prithviraj Chavan and home minister R.R. Patil could not agree on the action against the three policemen. Seeming-ly, the chief minister wanted to take action against the policemen in question, but the home minister was against the idea.
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