Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The high court has quashed the notice issued to the state police service officer Arun Mishra in connection with income-tax raids on former chief minister Kamal Nath’s associates after the directives of the Election Commission.
Besides Mishra, the state government issued charge-sheets to three IPS officers including Sanjay Mane, Sushobhan Banerjee and V Madhukumar. Out of these four officers, only Mishra went to the high court against the charge-sheet.
The high court gave relief to Mishra in March 2021 and, now, the court quashed it.
The charge-sheet was issued on the grounds of some loose papers seized from Prateek Joshi during the income-tax raids conducted at his residence before the elections.
In its order, the court said the entries on the basis of which the charge-sheet was issue were not enough.
After the raids, those entries were not mentioned in the income of Prateek Joshi, so there is no reason to take disciplinary action against Mishra.
The court said that the charge-sheet was illegal and based on vague evidence and that was done only on the basis of doubts and bias.
The court further said that if the case remained pending, an officer would have been deprived of promotion.
Referring to a ruling of the Supreme Court, the high court said nothing can be proved against someone on the basis of a diary and some loose papers.
The lawyer of Mishra informed the court that ‘A Mishra’ was written on the loose papers found during the income-tax raids in the house of Prateek Joshi, which the probe agency thought was ‘Arun Mishra’.
When the probe agency found the number ‘750’ on a piece of paper, they thought was Rs 7.5 crore and number “three” was treated as three bags.
All the actions were taken on the grounds of this evidence. The order has opened the door of the court to other officers.
