Punjab reinstates IPS officer five years after his suspension in Bargari case

“In compliance with the orders dated February 2, 2024, of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in CWP No 3087 of 2023, Paramraj Singh Umranangal, IPS, is hereby reinstated in service with immediate effect,” read the order.

“He shall report to the office of the Director General of Police for assignment of duties until regular posting orders are issued,” it said.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court had quashed Umranangal’s suspension in February this year while observing that “State cannot pick and choose the Rules of their suitability”. However, Umranangal moved the high court with a contempt of court petition following which the court on July 5 asserted that there were no grounds on which the state government could prevent Umaranangal from resuming work while fixing July 15 as the next date of hearing.

The IPS officer was suspended in February 2019, days after his arrest from Punjab Police headquarters where he was posted as IG (Policy & Rules). He was named as an accused in the 2015 Kotkapura police firing cases following sacrilege incidents. The FIR registered in August 2018. He was subsequently also named in the FIR relating to police firing in related incident at Behbal Kalan.

The incidents related to the theft of a ‘bir’ (copy) of Guru Granth Sahib, putting up handwritten sacrilegious posters and torn pages of the holy book found scattered at Bargari, had taken place in Faridkot in 2015. These incidents had led to protests in Faridkot. In the police firing at the protesters in October 2015, two people were killed in Behbal Kalan while some were injured at Kotkapura in Faridkot.

The state government had issued three suspension orders — two pertaining to police firing cases and one related to FIR in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances case — in February 2019, November 2020 and March 2021.

Umranangal had moved the HC in 2023 after the Central Administrative Tribunal rejected his claim for reinstatement.

In February, the high court, while quashing the three suspension orders had directed that Umranagal be allowed to “join the services forthwith”.

A division bench of Justices Sureshwar Thakur and Sudeepti Sharma after perusing the suspension orders and the procedure to be followed for suspension of All India Service Officers posted in Ministries/Departments/State Government under AIS (D&A) Rules, 1989, said, “It is revealed that the State Government did not bother to follow the procedure which is mandatory in the case of the petitioner for the reasons best known to the State.”

The Bench asserted, “It is very unfortunate to observe that on the one hand the petitioner is awarded with two Gallantry Awards for rendering his meritorious service in combating with terrorism in the State of Punjab, but on the other hand the State Government has placed the petitioner under suspension since February 18, 2019 till date which is for a period of almost five years without following any procedure, without any extension, without any recommendation of Central Review Committee, without any confirmation by the Central Government, which casts a doubt on the intention of the officers who are passing the suspension orders one after the other.”