No HC relief for CRPF DIG sacked on charge of sending lewd messages to woman

A sacked DIG of the CRPF, who was found guilty of sending sexually explicit material to a woman on her mobile phone, has failed to get any relief from the Delhi High Court, which said a senior public servant should maintain a higher standard of "rectitude".

The Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of the paramilitary force was removed from service in July, after it was proved in a departmental inquiry that his act had tarnished the image of the organisation and he had failed to maintain an absolute devotion to his duty.

A bench of justices S Muralidhar and Sanjeev Narula dismissed the petition of Sandeep Yadav, also an awardee of the President's Police Medal for meritorious service in 2010, in which he had challenged the penalty awarded to him by the disciplinary authority -- the Director General -- removing him from service.

"The court can only observe that the higher the position held by a public servant, the greater the standard of rectitude that has to be maintained," the bench said in an order passed earlier in November.

It said, "Serving as a DIG in the CRPF, a paramilitary force, the petitioner was not expected to indulge in the kind of conduct which has been proved against him in the inquiry. The court, in the circumstances, does not consider the penalty awarded to the petitioner to be disproportionate to the gravity of his conduct."