Bombay high court dismisses petition against former IPS officer

The Bombay high court on Thursday dismissed, with exemplary costs of Rs1 lakh, a public interest litigation (PIL) filed against former IPS officer Jayant Umranikar. The PIL sought departmental inquiry against him for misusing the Secret Service Fund (SSF) to purchase personal air tickets in 2006.

Umranikar was former police commissioner of Pune and has also authored a book on police reforms.

A division bench of Justice BH Marlapalle and Justice UD Salvi was hearing the PIL filed in August 2007 by Citizens Organisation for Public Opinion (COPO) taking note of press reports on the illegal detention of two travel agents — Sanjay Randive and Thomas Tavares — who became victims of illegal demands of gratification by the then additional director general of police (state CID) Umranikar’s subordinates.

The two were suspects in a fake passport scam which the CID was probing. Deputy superintendent of police VA Shinde asked Randive to book one business class and two economy class tickets for Umranikar and his family on the Pune-Delhi-Pune sector. Randive had alleged that he was arrested because he refused to give the tickets.

The judges took note of a report submitted by the Anti-Corruption Bureau. Shinde was asked by Umranikar to buy the air tickets for which he had provided Rs36,000 from the SSF (for his own ticket) and Rs17,000 from his personal funds for those of his family. The report stated that it is a practice to draw advance from SSF and there was “no element of dishonesty” by Umranikar.

The judges noted that the petition is based on press report only. “At the same time, there is nothing on record to show that Randive had approached petitioner (COPO) and requested them to take up his cause by a writ petition.” The personal cause of Randive or Tavares against the alleged illegal detention cannot be allowed to be agitated in a petition filed in public interest, the judges added.
The judges upheld Umranikar’s advocate MS Rao’s argument that the petition was “character assassination” and Randive had not made any “direct allegation against Umranikar”.

“The petitioner has grossly misused the forum of public interest litigation so far as Shri Umranikar is concerned and, therefore, it is imperative that the petitioner is saddled with exemplary costs,” the judges.