Railway police chief violates MAT order

Mumbai Railway Police Commissioner, Ashok Sharma, has allegedly violated an order of the Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal (MAT) in posting two suspended constables to the railway police’s headquarters in Ghatkopar.

The MAT, in its order dated February 26, had directed the commissioner to post Jagdish Mokal and Rahul Bhosale to the police station they were working in before their suspensions. But, on March 9, Sharma posted them at the headquarters, advocate AV Bandivadekar, who represented the two cops in the MAT court, said. DNA is in possession of MAT’s order.

Mokal and Bhosale were attached to the CST railway police station when they were suspended by DCP (Central Railway Zone) Vasant Koregoankar on Sept 1, 2008. The two had allegedly taken 5 Dinars from two Keralites, MA Kadar, 28, and AL Mahit, 32, on August 25 to not register a complaint against them for possessing the foreign currency. Kadar and Mahit had come from Bahrain and they were at the CST to catch a train to Thiruvananthapuram.

Bandivadekar argued in the MAT court that there was no written complaint from the two passengers against the policemen. The constables were suspended without a proper inquiry and merely on the basis of a report submitted by senior inspector Dilip Mane of the CST railway police station. He also told the court that a DCP is not the competent authority to suspend railway cops. Only the commissioner can suspend them, he said. “We will approach the MAT court again if its order is not implemented,” Bandivadekar said.

Commissioner Sharma said he will “look into the matter.”