Assam IPS officer, suspended for RTI reply, reinstated

The Hindu: Guwahati: Sunday, February 11, 2018.

N. Rajamarthandan was arrested for allegedly providing “classified” information relating to the investigation to an RTI applicant

A Tamil IPS officer of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre, who was suspended last year for replying to a Right to Information query on a sensitive issue, has been reinstated.

The Assam Home department on Friday issued a notification saying N. Rajamarthandan has been reinstated and posted as commandant of the 21st Assam Police Battalion at Katlicherra in Hailakandi district, some 330 km south of Guwahati.

The reinstatement is “without prejudice to departmental proceedings pending against” Mr. Rajamarthandan after he was placed under suspension, the notification by Home and Political department’s additional secretary Deepak Majumdar said.

Rights organisations in the Northeast have hailed the IPS officer’s reinstatement. “His crime was that he gave information under RTI Act as public information officer in the Assam Police. We salute this officer and hope and pray there are more like him,” social activist Agnes Kharshiing told The Hindu from Meghalaya capital Shillong.

Mr Rajamarthandan was the supervisory officer of the Special Investigation Team entrusted with probing an alleged attack on the office of All Assam Students’ Union in north-eastern Assam’s Silapathar by an organisation seeking citizenship for ‘persecuted’ Hindu Bengalis from Bangladesh.

The incident happened in March last year.

He was arrested three months later for allegedly providing “classified” information relating to the investigation to an RTI applicant. A miffed Indian Police Service (Central) Association sought an independent probe into the events leading to his arrest.

On June 22, the Supreme Court granted Mr Rajamarthandan bail, as the prosecution had failed to file a charge-sheet against him within the stipulated 60 days.

Vaiko writes to Rajnath, Sonowal

Mr. Rajamarthandan’s arrest had reached the corridors of power in Tamil Nadu. Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazahgam leader Vaiko, had shot off identical letters to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal expressing his angst.

“Rajamarthandan hails from a village near the temple city of Madurai in Tamil Nadu, and is an exemplary honest officer who has received the grading of an outstanding officer in the past two years. He belongs to the oppressed Dalit community,” Mr. Vaiko had said in his letter.