Thaindian News

Gandhinagar, Aug 12, (IANS) The Gujarat government said Friday that IPS officer Rahul Sharma has neither been suspended nor any chargesheet served on him as yet.

State government spokespersons Health Minister Jay Narayan Vyas and Minister of State for Energy Saurabh Patel termed the news of chargesheet and suspension as “false and baseless propaganda”.

Earlier, media reports had stated that the state government was planning to serve a charge-sheet to the officer.

“A deliberate attempt is being made to portray that he is being penalized for his depositions before the courts and commissions. That is not true. In fact it is the opposite, because of his not giving CDs to the investigating officer, he has caused serious infirmity to the investigation,” it was pointed out.

The government stated that “anybody, including an officer of the government can appear before the Court and Commissions as per law. State government has directed everybody to file affidavit before the Inquiry Commission headed by Justice Nanavati. State government has never objected to Sharma’s deposition before the Inquiry Commission neither objected his appearance before the SIT appointed by the Supreme Court.”

The two charged the Congress Party with coming out “in open support of such indisciplined conduct of an All India Service Officer which should be a matter of concern for the entire nation”.

“This attitude of the Congress party is dangerous to the federal governance of the country. The appeal made by the Congress party to shield such officers by the union government and the Supreme Court is direct invitation to raise rebellion against the state government,” it said.

Earlier, in the day the Gujarat High Court rejected Rahul Sharma’s petition against stonewalling of information by the state government he needed to answer a show cause notice served on him in February.

The high court rejected the plea on the ground that it was out of its territorial jurisdiction.

Justice Abhilasha Kumari Friday asked Sharma to approach the “appropriate authority” for the remedy as he had sought information under the Right to Information Act (RTI).

The petition came after the state government planned to haul up the officer for passing on, without government permission, information to the Nanavati-Mehta panel probing the 2002 Gujarat riots.

Sharma handed over copies of CDs of the call records to the Nanavati-Mehta judicial inquiry commission probing the 2002 Godhra train carnage and the riots that followed it when he was summoned to depose before it.

This data, in hindsight, has proved to be damning evidence of the call traffic between key elements who led the riots, including political leaders and those in important positions in the state government as well as the police.

In May 2002, he was ordered to assist the investigations into the Naroda Patia massacre case in Ahmedabad wherein he collected the call data for all key numbers during the period of rioting.