SC relief for former top cop Dadwal

NEW DELHI: In a relief to former Delhi Police commissioner Y S Dadwal, the Supreme Court has expunged stinging observations made by the Delhi high court in 2013 against the officer.
A bench of justices J S Khehar and S A Bobde allowed the appeal filed by the Delhi government and the police against the strictures passed by the HC.
The apex court agreed that Dadwal was not a party to the case where the HC passed remarks against him.Secondly, it held that the trial court order was not such that the HC could interpret it adversely against the former top cop.
"We find merit in the submission that the conclusion drawn by the HC was wholly misconceived...and expunge all remarks recorded against Y S Dadwal in the HC order," the SC directed.
In 2013, the HC had questioned Dadwal's conduct in connection with a case relating to the arrest of a man accused of running a prostitution racket in 1996. It had quashed departmental action and penalty imposed by Dadwal (then additional commissioner of police) against one D V Gautam, a sub-inspector who raided a banquet hall and arrested six persons in 1996.
A bench comprising Justice Pradeep Nandrajog and Justice V K Rao had observed that "there was clearly some hanky-panky going on between Y S Dadwal and Raghubir (one of the accused) who was a man of dubious reputation and involved in several cases of trafficking of women".
The court slammed Dadwal for penalizing SI Gautam on the basis of what it said was a dubious complaint of extortion levelled by Raghubir's wife 40 days after his arrest.
Seeking removal of the remarks the state government maintained that HC had "unjustifiably passed adverse remarks" against Dadwal without giving him an opportunity to explain his stand. It further argued that the remarks passed by the HC "did not flow out of the trial court order passed in 1998" which is why they must be removed from the record.
"We have given our thoughtful consideration to the submissions of the petitioners and find merit in both the submissions," the SC noted in its order.