Guj HC asks woman police officer to remain on leave

The Gujarat High Court today asked a woman police official to stay on leave till it gets verified the allegations that despite failing the physical fitness tests, she made it to the police force due to favouritism.

The division bench of Chief Justice R Subhash Reddy and Justice V M Pancholi asked Assistant Commissioner of Police Reena Munshi to stay on leave till her case is decided.

The bench gave the direction on a plea by ACP Munshi against a single-judge bench order of Justice Paresh Upadhyay who had held her ineligible and asked her to vacate the post.

Posted as ACP in Special Branch of Ahmedabad police, Munshi is currently on leave.
 

Munshi's appointment in police force was challenged earlier by co-aspirant to the job Neha Parmar, who, in her petition to Justice Upadhyay, had contended that Munshi did not meet the eligibility norms in terms of physical fitness that require a woman candidate to have a minimum chest measurement of 79 centimetres, with a minimum expansion of 5 centimetres.

Parmar had backed her petition with official disclosures procured under the Right to Information Act which showed that Munshi had undergone four medical tests but failed all of them on chest measurement criteria.

Yet, the official disclosures under the transparency law revealed that a certificate from home department declared her as meeting the eligibility norms on the basis of an allegedly forged certificate of Jamnagar medical board.

The single bench had in its order on April 21 held that certain officers of the General Administration Department played mischief with the medical record and "allegations of favouritism and manipulation of record by the officers thus stand substantiated."

The court had also said in its order that Munshi being the daughter of a very senior IAS officer, the government officials manipulated record to favour her.

It was against this single-judge bench order that Munshi had moved the division bench of the high court.

Munshi was appointed as deputy superintendent of police through the Gujarat Civil Services Class-I and II Combined Competitive Examination held by Gujarat Public Service Commission.

The GPSC itself had come out, on the direction of the General Administration Department, with a second list of 317 successful candidates after scrapping its first list of 316 candidates.

With Several candidates dropped out of the GPSC's second list, the entire recruitment process of the state public service commission, which had taken unduly long to be completed, had been challenged by various candidates in the high court.

The single judge bench, in turn, had ordered the government to initiate inquiry against its concerned officials and provide the inquiry report to the petitioner candidates.