Title: Sadat Hussain Vs State of Jammu and Kashmir
Case No. OWP No. 934/2022
The Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court recently said that the police should not act like the super boss of public administration.
According to a division bench of Justice Rahul Bharti, if a public servant has been subjected to surveillance by an officer of a rank on the pretext of receiving a complaint against him, then without first putting the complaint into the formal process, the public servant must act in confidence and perform his duty. I will be subject to paralysis.
The bench made the observation while hearing a petition in which the petitioner, who was working as a junior engineer in the PHE department, had questioned the action of the Doda Superintendent of Police and an anonymous complaint filed against him and the action of the SHO. But the question was raised.
Before the court, the petitioner submitted that the anonymous letter was written against him due to vested political interests. He further said that the police had no legal basis to entertain it and the police seized the case without registering an FIR.
Initially, the court said that the police had not put on record anything about how they came to know about the tip or why they chose to take action, instead of going to the petitioner's head of department.
The court also noted that the police had initiated action against the petitioner even without registering an FIR.
Therefore, the Bench allowed the petition of the petitioner and quashed the communication issued by the concerned police officer to the Executive Engineer, PHE Division, Doda.
