The Supreme Court has been moved for a direction to quash the order of suspension and the charge sheet filed against Uttar Pradesh IAS Officer Durga Shakti Nagpal.
Advocate Manoharlal Sharma, who filed a writ petition, said the U.P. government order was unconstitutional, arbitrary and lowering the constitutional systems as well as against the orders of the Supreme Court.
The petitioner said that on September 29, 2009 this court directed that henceforth no unauthorised construction be carried out or permitted in the name of temple, church, mosque or gurdwara on public streets, public parks or other public places. All States and Union Territories had taken necessary steps and the court’s directions were seriously and meticulously complied with.
Mr. Sharma said Ms. Nagpal was posted in Ghaziabad as a sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) in September 2012. Later, she was appointed SDM of Gautam Budh Nagar. When she visited Kadalpur village, she found encroachment of government land and a mosque under construction on public land. She immediately stopped the construction work and directed that the encroachment be removed immediately. Subsequently, she was victimised, suspended and charge-sheeted.
The petitioner said “Ms. Nagpal’s victimisation is a new low in a long process of the subversion of bureaucracy. The Indian Civil Service, modelled on the Westminster, was always meant to be insulated from politics. Unlike the U.S., where the entire bureaucracy changes when a government changes, in India, the same bureaucrats are meant to serve whichever government is in power.”
Mr. Sharma said another true fact behind the suspension was that after she was posted at Gautam Budh Nagar, Ms. Nagpal had stopped the entire illegal sand mining to the tune of Rs. 4,000 crore going on on the banks of the Hindon and Yamuna rivers. He said implementing the Supreme Court direction was not an offence and initiation of action against the IAS officer for performing her duty would amount to contempt of court. He sought a direction to quash the July 28 order suspending Ms. Nagpal, passed by the U.P. Chief Minister.
