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Porn sale: HC upholds DP's censure to SHO
The Delhi high court has upheld the punishment of censure to a police officer for his failure to curb the "open sale" of pornographic material at posh Palika Bazar shopping area here in 2008.
The Delhi high court has upheld the punishment of censure to a police officer for his failure to curb the "open sale" of pornographic material at posh Palika Bazar shopping area here in 2008.
"The manner in which the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) has scanned the material brought on record is not correct and justified and, therefore, the order passed by the tribunal is not sustainable and, accordingly, we quash the same," the bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Sanjiv Khanna said.
Earlier, the tribunal had set aside the punishment of censure, awarded to Harcharan Verma, then SHO of Connaught Place police station, by the disciplinary and appellate authority of the city police.
Aggrieved by the CAT's order, the police commissioner approached the High Court saying the order absolving the then SHO was illegal and invalid.
Verma was reprimanded following a departmental inquiry which held him accountable for failure to curb the open sale of CDs and VCDs of blue films in the underground Palika Bazar market here.
The punishment was upheld by the appellate disciplinary authority of Delhi police, which led to filing of a petition before the tribunal which ordered in favour of Verma.
"There is no misconduct on the part of applicant (Verma) and that there is lack of application of mind by the disciplinary and appellate authorities. The impugned orders cannot be sustained," the tribunal had said. The tribunal considered the actions taken by Verma in controlling the sale of obscene CDs and DVDs.
"They have not said as to what other steps he (Verma) could have taken... even the senior officers of Delhi Police, including the disciplinary and appellate authorities, could be held responsible for sale of pornographic material and be punished," it said.
The High Court, however, set aside the order of the tribunal and upheld the punishment to Verma.
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