New Delhi: In a rare punishment awarded to a senior IPS officer, the Rajasthan government has demoted Pankaj Choudhary, an officer of the 2009 batch, for three years on grounds of personal misconduct for marrying a second time even as his first marriage had not ended.
In 2019, Choudhary was dismissed from service on the same grounds, after which he remained out of the police service for a period of two years.
During this period, Choudhary challenged the decision of the Rajasthan government to dismiss him in different courts and got favourable orders from the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), Delhi High Court, and Supreme Court.
Yet, in December last year, the Rajasthan government’s Department of Personnel recommended Choudhary’s demotion after an “investigation into family disputes concerning him”. The recommendation was notified in February this year. According to it, Choudhary’s pay scale will be demoted from Level 11 to 10—the entry-level pay scale for IPS officers.
Choudhary, who is no stranger to controversy—some civil servants in Rajasthan refer to him as the state’s own ‘Ashok Khemka’ (a Haryana cadre IAS officer, who has been transferred over 50 times in his career due to run-ins with different governments)—says he will challenge the state government’s order for contempt of court.
“They are targeting me because I say no to the powerful, be it seniors or politicians,” Choudhary, who is currently posted as the Superintendent of Police, Community Policing, at the Police Headquarters in Jaipur, told ThePrint. “This is not the first time I am being targeted, but this is the first time that they are blatantly in contempt of court.”
ThePrint explains the case against Choudhary; if live-in relationships while being in an estranged marriage constitute immorality for officers of the All India Services (AIS); and why is Choudhary considered ‘Rajasthan’s Ashok Khemka’.
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Marriage troubles
While Choudhary had had several run-ins with various Rajasthan governments during his tenure, it was only in 2016 that he first ran into trouble because of his marriage.
In April 2016, a charge memo was issued to him under the All India Service (Disciplinary & Appeal) Rules, 1969, for living with a woman and having a son with her, even as he remained married to another woman.
The allegation against him was that he filed a divorce application before the Civil Court, and, even before the divorce could be granted by the court, he married another woman. This, it was alleged, amounted to misconduct under Rule 3(1) of the All India Service (Conduct) Rules, 1968.
Rule 3(1) of the AIS (Conduct) Rules says, “Every member of the Service shall at all times maintain absolute integrity and devotion to duty and shall do nothing which is unbecoming of a member of the Service.”
The divorce was granted to him only in 2018.
In March 2019, he was dismissed from service on the same grounds.
However, when Choudhary challenged his dismissal in CAT, the tribunal observed, “The imposition of punishment of dismissal against the IPS officer with a decade of otherwise unblemished service becomes a bit untenable.”
But the tribunal also said there was “some legal and factual basis” for the government action, which warrants a punishment “other than the one of dismissal from service”.
It is on this basis that the state government has now demoted Choudhary. However, the CAT order dated December 2020 said that this should be done within three months.
Instead of complying with the order, the state government challenged the order in the Delhi High Court.
What constitutes immorality for an IPS officer?
The Delhi High Court, which upheld the CAT order, made some crucial arguments about what constitutes integrity and morality for officers of the All India Services.
In the order, dated 19 March 2021, the Delhi High Court said that “ethical standards have been changing over the last half a century when the All India Service (Conduct) Rules were framed”.
The rules, it further said, “like law, have to be considered as a living organism, the purport and meaning of whereof changes with the changes in societal behaviour”.
Moreover, what may have been considered unethical in 1968 may not necessarily be considered unethical now, it said.
“The concept, definition and standards of morality also has been changing… Though living with another woman while having subsisting marriage may have been absolute no no till about 20 years back, in today’s time it is viewed differently.”
Finally, the court also admitted that it takes “unusually long” for divorces to come through, and in this case, Choudhary “was placed with a choice of either losing out on companionship of a spouse and child during the prime of his life and/or having relationship and children with an adult, who with full knowledge of state of affairs, was willing”.
The Special Leave Petition (SLP) challenging the Delhi HC order, filed by the state government in the Supreme Court, was dismissed by the top court in May 2021.
“They have exhausted all options and have now demoted me even though the court has clearly ruled in my favour,” Choudhary told ThePrint.
No stranger to controversy
Choudhary’s career has been fraught with confrontations with the government, no matter who was in power.
In 2013, when the Congress was in power, Choudhary was allegedly shunted out as the Jaisalmer SP for opening the criminal records of Gazi Fakir.
Fakir, the father of Congress leader Shaleh Mohammad, was accused of running a cross-border smuggling racket and acting as an agent of Pakistan’s ISI, among other things.
At the time, a shutdown was observed in several parts of Jaisalmer in protest against his transfer, including by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who accused the Congress government of victimising the officer.
A year later, however, he faced similar action after the BJP assumed power. In 2014, he was allegedly shunted out as SP from Bundi district by the BJP government after he arrested 11 activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal accused of rioting in Nainwa.
He was also served a chargesheet by the Vasundhara Raje government for allegedly refusing to release the Right-wing activists despite pressure to do so.
In September last year, Choudhary wrote an open letter calling for the arrest of former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, whom he accused of having a vendetta and “mysterious malice” towards him during his last two tenures as CM, “to bring the truth of paper leaks”.
Choudhary’s wife, Mukul, who was earlier with the Congress, has been with the BJP since September 2023. In fact, her mother, Shashi Dutta, served as law minister under the Bhairon Singh Shekhawat government in the 1990s.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
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