High court notice to govt in PCS officer case

LUCKNOW: The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court has sought to know from the state government the reason behind sending policemen to serve a chargesheet on special secretary, national integration department, Harishankar Pandey.

The bench comprising justice Devi Prasad Singh and justice Ashok Pal Singh passed the order on Pandey’s petition saying “prima facie, it doesnot seem justifiable in a civilized society governed by the rule of law”. The court will take up the matter again tomorrow.

It may be mentioned that Lucknow Sadar tehsildar, who was deputed by the state government to serve chargesheet on Pandey, had taken Gomtinagar circle officer Vidya Sagar Mishra and several cops along with him to Pandey’s residence to do the needful.

Pandey had challenged the chargesheet issued by principal secretary, appointment, Rajiv Kumar. Petitioner’s counsel Asok Pande informed the court that the manner in which the chargesheet was served was wrong, as it did not require police officials because the matter was of not of a criminal nature.

According to Pande, the petitioner was appointed as inquiry officer for investigation into the matter of a chief engineer of Rural Engineering Services (RES). The chief engineer had allegedly made interpolation in his service record changing his age in order to get the retirement benefits. The counsel said Pandey, who had also probed into financial bungling in RES, found some anomalies, which was the reason of setting up of inquiry against the petitioner.