The Karnataka High Court has quashed the appointment of Shankar Bidari as state police chief in view of alleged atrocities on women and tribals by police teams headed by him during the hunt for forest brigand Veerappan. The court said if the allegations against him were true then Bidari is \u201cworse than Saddam Hussain or Muammar Gaddafi\u201d.<\/p>\n
Justices N. Kumar and H.S. Kempanna slammed Bidari over alleged atrocities and said: \u201cThough he was not one of them, if what the two women (tribals) have said in their affidavit is true, he is worse than them (Saddam Hussain and Muamar Gadaffi.\u201d<\/p>\n
Their ruling Friday upheld the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) order cancelling Bidari\u2019s appointment as Karnataka Director General and Inspector General of Police.<\/p>\n
His appointment was challenged in the CAT by A.R. Infant, who is one year senior to Bidari in the Indian Police Service (IPS). Infant belongs to the 1977 batch while Bidari to the 1978 batch. He was appointed as DGP in November last year.<\/p>\n
Dismissing Bidari\u2019s petition challenging the CAT ruling, Justice Kumar and Kempanna directed immediate appointment of Infant as DGP.<\/p>\n
Bidari and the state government now plan to petition the Supreme Court against the high court ruling.<\/p>\n
Following the high court directive, Infant will Saturday assume charge as DGP and IGP of Karnataka police, Home Minister R. Ashoka told reporters here Saturday after a meeting with Chief Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe bow to the high court order. Infant will take over as DGP and IGP. But we will petition the Supreme Court as the issue also involves the right of the government to appoint the police chief,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Bidari was deputy commander of the joint Special Task Force (STF) set up by the Karnataka and Tamil Nadu governments to nab elephant poacher and sandalwood smuggler Veerappan, who operated in the forests across the two states.<\/p>\n
The brigand was shot dead by Tamil Nadu police in October 2004.<\/p>\n
Justices Kumar and Kempanna held that Bidari had not shown remorse even now for the atrocities committed by STF.<\/p>\n
They said Bidari should be relieved immediately and Infant be appointed to the post \u201cif the state has any respect for rule of law, womanhood, human rights, tribals, concern for the downtrodden, and the socially backward\u201d.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Karnataka High Court has quashed the appointment of Shankar Bidari as state police chief in view of alleged atrocities on women and tribals by police teams headed by him during the hunt for forest brigand Veerappan. The court said if the allegations against him were true then Bidari is \u201cworse than Saddam Hussain or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[7574,7573,3518,7575],"class_list":["post-18895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-top-law-news","tag-justice-h-s-kempanna","tag-justice-n-kumar","tag-karnataka-high-court","tag-karnataka-police"],"yoast_head":"\n