Key Takeaways
- The Ministry ordered the premature retirement of officer Basant in public interest.
- Rath, an Inspector General of Police, had been suspended for misconduct before the retirement order.
- He previously accused the J&K DGP of corruption, prompting further scrutiny.
Srinagar: The Ministry of Home Affairs has ordered the premature retirement of suspended Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Basant Kumar Rath in “public interest”.
The order was issued on August 7 said the President, in consultation with the UT Division and the Ministry of Home Affairs Competent Authority, approved the premature retirement of Basant Kumar Rath, a 2000-batch IPS officer of Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram, and Union Territory (AGMUT), in “public interest” with immediate effect by giving three months pay and allowances in lieu of notice.
The Odisha-born IPS officer, Rath, who held the rank of an Inspector General of Police (IGP), was suspended three years ago by the central government for “repeated instances of gross misconduct and misbehaviour.” His suspension was extended by six more months in July.
The office memorandum attached with the premature retirement order of Rath said that the central Government, after careful consideration of the proposal of the UT Division and the performance, had come to the conclusion that the “officer is not fit to be retained in service in the public interest.”
“The Central Government has, therefore, decided to retire Rath prematurely from service in public interest under Rule 16(3) of the AIS (DCRB) Rules, 1958, with immediate effect,” it said.
After his suspension in 2020, Rath levelled serious corruption allegations against the J&K Director General of Police, Dilbag Singh, and other officers.
Only yesterday, Rath in a video clip, levelled serious allegations against the DGP and urged President Droupadi Murmu to dismiss him from service. Of late, Rath also used to taunt Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla.
Rath, who was born in 1972 in Odisha and studied Sociology at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, had several times in the recent past expressed his desire to join politics.
