High Court restores Kolkata Police counsellor’s job

Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has held that police authorities cannot restrain a counsellor attached to the Family Counselling Centre at Kolkata Police headquarters from performing her duties through an administrative order issued by an officer who is neither the appointing nor the disciplinary authority.

Justice Krishna Rao ruled that directing the counsellor to report elsewhere and withdrawing all supporting staff amounted to an indirect termination of service without following due process of law.

The petitioner has been serving as a counsellor since 1995 at the Family Counselling Centre under a scheme administered by the West Bengal Social Welfare Advisory Board. In July 2023, she received a letter from a Reserve Officer of the Detective Department directing her to report to another authority with

immediate effect and stating that all staff attached to her office had been withdrawn. The court noted that the impugned order contained no allegation against the petitioner.

Subsequently, serious allegations were communicated by the state government to an associated non-governmental organisation, which forwarded them to the petitioner and asked her to submit her resignation. The petitioner denied the allegations in her reply.

The court observed that the Reserve Officer lacked jurisdiction to issue directions that effectively restrained the petitioner from discharging her duties. It reiterated that an administrative order must be judged only on the reasons stated in the order and cannot later be justified through fresh allegations.

Although no formal termination order was passed, the court held that the sequence of actions had a stigmatic effect. The court directed that the petitioner be allowed to continue working and be paid all consequential benefits within four weeks, while permitting action in accordance with law.