CAT orders reinstatement of Delhi police constable

The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) has directed the Delhi Police to reinstate a constable removed on the basis of an FIR, though a trial court had acquitted him of all the criminal charges.

The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) has directed the Delhi Police to reinstate a constable removed on the basis of an FIR, though a trial court had acquitted him of all the criminal charges.

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The tribunal also pulled up the Delhi Police disciplinary authority for breaching its jurisdiction by removing a provisionally selected constable.

It said the authorities exceeded its jurisdiction "by not acting as a quasi-judicial authority, but partaking the character of the Judicial Magistrate and having recorded a finding over and above the finding of the trial judge."

The CAT bench, comprising members Shanker Raju and Veena Chhotray, passed the order on a plea of Praveen Yadav, seeking to quash the authority's order sacking him on the basis of the FIR.

"Having been acquitted in the criminal case where no imputation and suspicion has been raised or observed by the trial court, we cannot substitute the views of disciplinary authority to hold him unfit for holding the post of constable," the tribunal said.

"The acquittal by the court was an obliteration of any stigma attached to an offence for which a presumption and a legal inference in law has to be drawn that a person has not been involved in a criminal case," the CAT said.

Yadav was terminated from service in August this year.