State to revoke suspension of DCP Saurabh Tripathi

The Maharashtra government has started the process to revoke the suspension of IPS officer Saurabh Tripathi, after a departmental enquiry was ordered against him in connection with an extortion case. This comes after the state government dropped the departmental enquiry against former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh and revoked his suspension.

The Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis government has begun the process to revoke the suspension of IPS officer Saurabh Tripathi, nearly 14 months after the state ordered a departmental enquiry against him in connection with an extortion case, home department officials said. Tripathi was the deputy commissioner of police (DCP), zone 2, when his name was added to an FIR registered at LT Marg police station last year.

Mumbai, India - March 22, 2022: Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Saurabh Tripathi suspended by Maharashtra home department after being booked in the Angadia extortion case, in Mumbai, India, on Tuesday, March 22, 2022. (HT Photo) (Hindustan Times)

The development comes barely five days after the state government, on May 12, dropped the departmental enquiry against former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh and revoked his suspension.

Tripathi’s request for dropping the enquiry was rejected twice by the suspension review committee, headed by then chief secretary Manukumar Srivastava, earlier this year. However, recently, he again approached the panel, citing a Supreme Court judgement that said an officer can’t be kept under suspension for more than three months.

Based on a complaint by Bhuleshwar Angadia Association (traditional couriers who deliver cash or jewellery from one trader to another), a case against inspector Om Wangate, inspector Nitin Kadam, and assistant inspector Samadhan Jamdade was registered at LT Marg police station on February 18, 2022. The trio were charged with sections dealing with extortion, robbery and wrongful restraint of the Indian Penal Code.

A preliminary inquiry by the then additional commissioner of police (south), Dilip Sawant, found that the three had in the first week of December 2021 extorted ₹19 lakh from angadias in south Mumbai after threatening to report them to the income tax department, the FIR said.

Tripathi, who was then DCP of zone 2, went incommunicado the very next day. His name was added to the FIR on March 9 last year after Wangate allegedly revealed on being interrogated that they were acting on Tripathi’s instructions. The three officers were arrested on March 16.

Meanwhile, the crime branch issued a lookout circular against Tripathi and sent teams to his hometown in UP. On March 22, 2022, the state home department suspended Tripathi, pending a departmental enquiry.

On April 8, the police named Tripathi’s father Neel Kanth Tiwari, a retired government official, as an accused in the case. The Police Establishment Board in October last year reinstated Wangate, Kadam and Jamdade following a review meeting.

The sessions court on October 19 denied Tripathi anticipatory bail, after which he approached the Bombay high court. He even moved a plea in the Supreme Court seeking to transfer the case from the Mumbai police to the Central Bureau of Investigation, but later withdrew the petition.

The HC on November 15 granted anticipatory bail to Tripathi on grounds that he had cooperated with the investigators and his custodial investigation was not required.