New Delhi:
The Supreme Court has stayed the Karnataka High Court order which had quashed the appointment of Shankar Bidari as Director General of the state police, dubbing him as "worse than Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi."
A bench of justices Aftab Alam and C K Prasad today asked Karnataka High Court to examine afresh the matter and dispose it of before May 31.
The court while staying the High Court's March 30 order, said the latter had passed the impugned order on assumptions without going into the findings of the Justice Sadashiva Commission and National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), which, according to Bidari, had given him a clean chit in the case of alleged sexual abuse of tribal women by the joint Special Task Force (STF).
The Karnataka High Court had earlier quashed Bidari's appointment saying he was indicted by the commission as he was the Deputy Commander at the time of the alleged atrocities committed by the Joint STF of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, set up to track down sandalwood smuggler Veerappan.
The Supreme Court said it was of a prima facie view that the findings of the Sadashiva Commission and NHRC were not relevant considerations for the empanelled officers, yet, it said, it was not going into the merits of the issue at this stage and left it to the High Court to decide the same.
While former Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam appeared for Bidari, senior counsel U U Lalit appeared for the Karnataka government.
Another senior counsel Altaf Ahmed appeared for senior IPS officer A R Infant on whose petition the High Court had passed the impugned order.
The Supreme Court was hearing a petition filed by IPS officer Shankar Mahadev Bidari challenging the Karnataka High Court's order which had quashed his appointment as DGP while dubbing him as "worse than Saddam Hussein or Moammar Gaddafi." The high court had made the stinging remark against Bidari for the alleged abuse of women by the Special Task Force led by him during the hunt to nab Veerappan.
The High Court had dubbed Bidari as "worse than Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi" in response to his contention that he cannot be held responsible for atrocities as he was only a Deputy Commander of the Joint Task Force of two states, set up to catch Veerappan and was not "omnipresent and omnipotent like Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi."
Bidari's appointment had been challenged by another DGP A R Infant who was a year senior to Bidari but had allegedly been bypassed.