The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) has set aside the charge memo, issued by the State government this May, on the orders of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, to senior IPS officer Alok Kumar. This is in connection with the 2019 case of leaked audio clip of lawfully intercepted phone calls. Then Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai in 2023 had found it not necessary to hold any departmental proceedings.
Timing of memo
The “timing of the charge memo legitimately invites doubt about the propriety of exercise” of process of conducting departmental enquiry as it was revived two years after previous the CM’s note against the enquiry, and just days before Mr. Kumar’s scheduled promotion to the rank of Director-General of Police by the end of May, 2025, said CAT’s chairperson Ranjit More in his judgment delivered on October 14.
The issue of legality of the issuance of the charge memo was referred to the chairperson, as a Division Bench of the tribunal in Bengaluru on September 4 passed a divergent verdict, in which B.K. Shrivastava (member-judicial) had set aside the charge memo and Santosh Mehra (member-administrative) had upheld it.
The Chief Secretary, based on the orders of Mr. Siddaramaiah, on May 9 had issued notice along with the charge memo to Mr. Kumar under Rule 8 (4) of the All-India Services (Discipline and Appeals) Rules, 1969. Mr. Kumar, who is presently an Additional Director-General of Police (Training), had challenged this before the CAT.
