HC orders probe into suspended officer’s plea

The Madras High Court has directed the Union Revenue Secretary to personally inquire into a representation of July 12 last year by C. Rajan, suspended Additional Director-General (ADG) of Revenue Intelligence, against whom a charge sheet has been filed in a case of alleged corruption.

Alternatively, the Union official should forward a copy of the representation to the Director, CBI, for a detailed inquiry.

In either case, the inquiry result should be communicated to Mr. Rajan in eight weeks.

If the inquiry outcome was indicative of any foul play, Mr. Rajan could seek appropriate remedy.

Justice V. Ramasubramanian was disposing of writ petitions by the official.

The CBI case against him was that while working as ADG he demanded illegal gratification.

A trap was laid and he was arrested and remanded to judicial custody on March 7 last year.

He was released on bail in April last year.

Mr. Rajan sent representations on July 12 and 14 to the Revenue Secretary and the Director-General of Revenue Intelligence.

His grievance was that he detected, what he alleged, an “economic fraud of huge proportions” by Hyundai Motors Ltd., and JWS Steels Ltd.

To stall the probe into it, a conspiracy was hatched to fix him in a case of demand and acceptance of illegal gratification.

There was no response to his representations. So, he filed the present petition.

He prayed the court for an investigation by a Special Investigation Team into the circumstances in which the FIR was registered against him and to take action against those responsible for “fabricating false evidence” and also to restrain the CBI from taking any further action based on the FIR.

Mr. Justice Ramasubramanian said it was unfortunate that while according sanction to prosecute the official, the sanctioning authority had not taken note of the petitioner’s grievance contained in his representation.

F. Ubaidullah, who lodged the complaint against Mr. Rajan, was already involved in several criminal cases, some of which were initiated by the petitioner’s office.

In the whole episode of trapping the official, there was no whisper in the ‘recovery mahazar’ as to whether Mr. Rajan handled the tainted money at all at any point of time.

The Judge observed that the kind of trap laid in Mr. Rajan’s case could be organised against anyone, including an honest officer.

The Union Revenue Secretary and Director-General of Revenue Intelligence had not denied the fact that the petitioner had sent representations.