Centre mulls withdrawing police medals

The Centre may soon come up with a policy to revoke police and gallantry medals awarded to officers convicted by a court. Union Home Secretary G.K. Pillai told HT that any IPS officer convicted by a court should be stripped of his medal.

The Centre may soon come up with a policy to revoke police and gallantry medals awarded to officers convicted by a court. Union Home Secretary G.K. Pillai told HT that any IPS officer convicted by a court should be stripped of his medal.

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The Centre has already set in motion the process to strip former Haryana police chief, SPS Rathore, of his President’s police medal.

Rathore was recently sentenced to six months in prison for molesting 14-year-old Ruchika Girhotra in 1990. “In Rathore’s case, there are other grave allegations like abetment to suicide,’’ Pillai said. Dismissed Haryana IPS officer Ravi Kant Sharma, sentenced to life in journalist Shivani Bhatnagar’s murder case, still has a President’s police medal.