Over 20 years after he was arrested on espionage prices, a 46-year-old from Kanpur is inside touching distance of judgeship. Final week, the Allahabad Excessive Court docket ordered the Uttar Pradesh authorities to difficulty the letter appointing Pradeep Kumar, a resident of Kanpur who was arrested in June 2002, as Further District Decide.
In 2002, Kumar, then an unemployed 24-year-old regulation graduate, was accused of finishing up espionage actions for Pakistan and charged with sedition, legal conspiracy, and numerous provisions of the Official Secrets and techniques Act. He confronted two trials and a stint in jail earlier than being acquitted by a Kanpur court docket in 2014.
In line with a July 2019 report of the “army authority” to the Kanpur District Justice of the Peace, which the Excessive Court docket took notice of, Kumar was arrested in a joint operation by the STF and Army Intelligence on June 13, 2002, primarily based on inputs obtained from “sister intelligence businesses”. The report mentioned Kumar’s “father was additionally discovered to be suspended from the service of a further Decide for prices of bribery in 1990”.
The report alleged that Kumar, “in the hunt for simple cash choices had are available in contact of an individual specifically Faizan Illahi”, who ran a photostat store and who allegedly requested him to “present him some info on phone in alternate of cash”. The report alleged that Kumar handed on delicate info of the Kanpur cantonment in alternate for cash.
In its 2014 order acquitting him, a Kanpur court docket mentioned, “…the prosecution should show that the accused has expressed or tried to incite hatred or contempt in direction of the Authorities via phrases, indicators, or seen representations. On this case, there isn’t any proof on file from the prosecution’s witnesses to substantiate claims of such actions in opposition to the Authorities.”
Two years later, Kumar utilized for the UP Greater Judicial Service below the UP Greater Judicial Service (Direct Recruitment) Examination, 2016, securing the twenty seventh place within the benefit listing. On August 18, 2017, the Excessive Court docket beneficial his appointment, together with different chosen candidates, to the state authorities. Nevertheless, Kumar was not issued an appointment letter.
In response, he approached the Excessive Court docket, which, in August 2017, directed the state authorities to current the matter to the Governor inside two weeks and acquire an opinion throughout the following month, after consulting related authorities. The court docket additional instructed the state to proceed with the appointment if essential. Moreover, the court docket imposed a value of Rs 10 lakh on the State for its “detached angle” and delay in appearing on its advice concerning the petitioner’s appointment.
The order was not challenged. Subsequently, the matter was reviewed by the state authorities, which, via an workplace memorandum dated September 26, 2019, declined to nominate the petitioner.
Kumar then filed a recent petition within the Allahabad Excessive Court docket with a prayer to quash the state authorities’s 2019 order and in search of appointment as Further District Decide within the UP Greater Judicial Service.
Within the Excessive Court docket order handed on December 6, a division bench of Justices Saumitra Dayal Singh and Donadi Ramesh quashed the state authorities order and requested for Kumar to be appointed in opposition to current vacancies after finishing up a “character verification of the petitioner inside a interval of two weeks”.
“Consequentially, upon completion of all formalities, appointment letter could also be issued to the petitioner not later than fifteenth January 2025. The petitioner could also be appointed in opposition to current vacancies, as on date. This modified aid we’ve granted as a result of although chosen in opposition to emptiness of 2017, neither these vacancies survive within the gentle of the supply of U.P. HJS Guidelines and likewise, the petitioner doesn’t have any work expertise within the HJS cadre for the final seven years,” the court docket mentioned.
The court docket went on to say, “No materials exists with the State respondents to achieve a conclusion that the petitioner could have labored for any overseas intelligence company. The truth that he could have been on the ‘radar’ of the Indian intelligence businesses, itself means nothing. To be suspected of an offence just isn’t an offence or a scar on a citizen’s character… To say, a citizen would proceed to be suspected of an offence alleged and subsequently be disadvantaged of fruits of onerous labour and ‘honourable acquittal’ earned by him, could be, to not solely vicariously penalise an harmless citizen after his innocence has been established in a Court docket of regulation, however it could efficiently militate in opposition to the rule of regulation itself, assured by the Structure.”
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