IAS officer, now UP special secy, summoned by court in 2019 case of assaulting clerk in chamber

Bareilly: The chief judicial magistrate’s (CJM) court in Bareilly has summoned IAS officer OP Verma, posted currently as special secretary in Lucknow, directing him to appear on July 2 in an alleged case of assault and false imprisonment of a subordinate govt staff.The complaint was filed by RK Saxena, a clerk who maintained legal records in ‘chakbandi’ (land consolidation) department. Saxena alleged that Verma -- then posted as ADM (city), Bareilly -- had summoned him to his official chamber on the evening of Jan 24, 2019.“Chakbandi officials Ramakant Shukla, Prem Chandra and Sunil Kumar Sharma were present inside (the chamber). Verma picked up a stick kept in a corner and started beating me. Others joined in and rained kicks and blows on me,” Saxena stated in his complaint.He added: “I was coerced into signing a statement prepared by Verma’s ‘peshkar’ (usually a court reader or bench clerk). I was handed over to Kotwali police the same evening for ‘breach of peace’ under CrPC 151 and incarcerated on Jan 25. I got bail on Feb 1, 2019. My subsequent complaints to the SSP yielded no proper action, prompting me to approach court.”After examining Saxena’s affidavit, witness statements and police investigation report, CJM Suresh Kumar Dube found prima facie grounds to proceed with the matter.The court rejected defence’s contention that a prior govt sanction was required to prosecute a public servant, citing a Supreme Court precedent that the “protection available to public servants does not extend to abuse of official position”.The matter goes back to 2006 when a presiding officer in the chakbandi department passed two conflicting orders in the same appeal. When the discrepancy surfaced, the department allegedly filed a fraud case against Saxena, who was working then as a ‘peshkar’.Saxena was acquitted from the case in May 2018, and later he began raising the issue of his “harassment”, following which, he alleged, senior officials developed a grudge against him. Saxena also claimed that when he tried to file defamation against the “errant” officer, they started harassing him again.Meanwhile, OP Verma told TOI on Thursday: “The complainant forged my signature and sold a land of 100 bigha illegally. There was a case pending in my court when I was ADM, Bareilly. The land owner had died in 2006 -- after this the question arises that who was fighting a case on behalf of a dead man?”Verma continued: “I then summoned the tehsildar... The complainant has FIRs lodged against him. He was an employee who had been terminated.”