IPS officer who headed Ishrat Jahan encounter probe dismissed

Gujarat cadre Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Satish Chandra Verma, who was part of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the Ishrat Jahan encounter case, was dismissed from service before he was to retire, people familiar with the matter said.

Verma, who is currently posted in the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), has moved the Supreme Court against the Centre’s dismissal move, they added.

The 1986-batch officer was slated to superannuate on September 30. On August 30, the Centre informed the Delhi high court that he has been dismissed from service in view of departmental proceedings against him.

It is unclear as to when exactly Verma was dismissed from service.

The court, which is hearing Verma’s plea challenging the departmental proceedings against him, allowed the government to implement the dismissal order with effect from September 19, according to the people cited above.

“We still have time till September. We have approached the Supreme Court,” Verma’s lawyer Sarim Naved said.

In his petition in the top court, a copy of which HT has seen, Verma said: “The impugned order (of Delhi high court) has allowed the Union of India to pass an order that may result in the petitioner’s dismissal from service with retrospective effect (even though he superannuates on September 30, 2022), which is not permissible as per statutory rules governing the members of the All India Services.”

In a charge memo issued to Verma in September 2018, the ministry of home affairs alleged that although he was relieved from the post of chief vigilance officer (CVO) of North Eastern Electric Power Corporation (NEEPCO) in July 2016, he had failed to handover the files and kept them in personal custody for a long time. Other disciplinary charges were also initiated against him, including talking to the media.

Verma had assisted the Gujarat high court-appointed SIT to probe the 2004 Ishrat Jahan encounter case. In an affidavit in the high court in 2011, he claimed that 19-year-old Ishrat was killed in a fake encounter in June 2004 along with three men believed to be linked to terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

While the case was later transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Verma continued to be associated with it on the directions of the high court.