S. VIVEKANANDAN Vs. DEPUTY INSPECTOR GENERAL OF POLICE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner herein was implicated in a criminal case and the charge-sheet filed therein was taken on file in C.C.No.468 of 2012, before the learned Judicial Magistrate, Mannarkudi. The petitioner was arrayed as 3rd accused. In view of the involvement in the criminal case, departmental proceedings were initiated against the petitioner in P.R.No.7 of 2013, under Rule 3(b) of the Tamil Nadu Police Subordinate Service (D&A) Rules, 1955, which is pending and under challenge in the present writ petition.

(2.) Though the petitioner had raised several grounds challenging the charge-sheet itself, one of the grounds raised by the petitioner is that the criminal court had acquitted the petitioner from the charges through a Judgment, dated 01.09.2015 and therefore, the departmental proceedings itself is liable to be set aside.

(3.) The learned counsel for the petitioner relied upon a decision of this court passed in W.P.Nos.34799 of 2013 and 27463 of 2016, dated 28.03.2018, wherein, the co- accused who had been arrayed as A-4 and who is also a co-delinquent for the same set of charges in P.R.No.8 of 2013 came to be allowed and the charge-sheet against the fourth accused was set aside. Hence, he would submit that the present charge as against this petitioner also requires to be quashed.