New Delhi: Filing of sedition cases when regimes change is a disturbing trend , the Supreme Court said on Thursday while granting protection from arrest to the suspended Director of Chhattisgarh Police Academy against whom two criminal cases of sedition and amassing of disproportionate assets have been filed by the state government.
"State of affairs in the country is sad," said a bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana.
Gurjinder Pal Singh, the 1994-batch IPS officer who had served as the IG of Raipur, Durg and Bilaspur during the earlier BJP rule, was initially booked in the disproportionate assets case following raids at his premises by state's Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) and Economic Offences Wing (EOW).
Another case of sedition was invoked against him later on the grounds of his alleged involvement in promoting enmity and hatching a conspiracy against government.
The bench expressed displeasure over the trend of filing of sedition cases just after senior advocate F S Nariman made opening submissions on behalf of Singh, saying the gentleman has served as the Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) and was acting as the Director of the Police Academy and now the proceedings under section 124A (sedition) of the IPC have been initiated against him .
The bench, which also comprised Justice Surya Kant, directed the Congress-led state government not to arrest Singh for four weeks in either of the cases. It also directed Singh to cooperate with the agencies in the investigation.
This is a very disturbing trend in the country and the police department is also responsible for this... When a political party is in power, police officials take the side of the particular (ruling) party. Then when another new party comes into power, the government initiates
action against the police officials. This needs to be stopped, the bench said.