Rapping the Mumbai Police for apparently sitting on a complaint against a senior IPS officer for two years,the Bombay High Court today asked the CBI to probe the role of six serving IPS officers and one retired officer accused of shielding their colleague who reportedly cleared a law examination through unfair means. The vice-principal of Siddharth Law College in Mumbai,Chitra Salunkhe,had alleged that IPS officer K L Bishnoi,currently serving as IG (Protection of Civil Rights),was shown to have cleared his final year LLB examination although he did not appear for the practical examination on March 12,2005. The IPS officers accused of shielding Bishnoi include Maharashtra ATS chief Rakesh Maria,ADGP Mohan Rathod,former ADGP Pankaj Gupta and ACPs Sanjay Saxena,Naval Bajaj,Brijesh Singh and Vishwas Nangre-Patil. In our view,it is the duty of a police officer to look into allegations and promptly conduct an inquiry and not to sit on complaints and delay proceedings, said a division bench of Justices V M Kanade and P D Kode. The court has given the CBI three months to probe the case. Salunkhe,who had supervised the practical examination that Bishnoi reportedly skipped,contended that the police officer had colluded with the then acting principal of the college,I A Inamdar. In April 2006,she filed a complaint against Bishnoi and Inamdar at the Azad Maidan police station. Salunkhe had also complained to the SC/ST Commission that the police had discriminated against her on the basis of her caste. She later moved the HC stating that although the SC/ST Commission had directed the DGP and the Azad Maidan police station to register an FIR against Bishnoi in June 2009,it was not done. Salunkhe contended that the seven IPS officers she sought action against had not acted on her complaint. Observing that the police had not acted on her complaint for over two years,the court asked the CBI to take over the case.
