Process service benefits claim of missing constable’s family: HC to CRPF

A sexagenarian father’s legal battle to secure service benefits of his son, a constable of the Central Reserve Police Force who was missing for over a decade, ended with the Telangana High Court instructing authorities to process his claim.

A bench of Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice G.M. Mohiuddin, pronouncing verdict in a writ plea filed by M. Appa Rao, quashed the order of CRPF’s authorities removing his missing son, Srikanth, from service. The CRPF’s disciplinary rules provide a separate forum for appeal against the ‘missing’ constable’s removal from service.

But, ‘since the delinquent (Srikanth) has not been traceable all along till date, his innocent father should not be relegated to the alternative remedy of appeal’, the judgement said. The bench noted that Srikanth’s removal from service cannot be sustained in the eyes of law going by the facts and circumstances of the case.

In 2014, Srikanth was declared unfit for combat service since he had an amputation of his left leg. After being referred to the Rehabilitation Board, he preferred to attend a computer course and joined CRPF Group Centre, Jharodakalan, New Delhi. Srikanth went missing from that campus on June 1, 2015 and was eventually declared a deserter. Since he was not traced, an ex-parte departmental inquiry was ordered which ended in his removal from service.

In 2016, his father filed a writ petition seeking a direction to grant service benefits of his son to the family. Srikanth did not go missing while on off-duty. He went missing while undergoing training at the Jhadokalan centre, which was under the control of the authorities concerned. The officials took the plea that registers, records and CCTV footage of the concerned days either had been weeded out or got erased.

The Baba Haridas Nagar police of New Delhi mentioned that CRPF authorities themselves lodged a complaint about Srikanth’s disappearance. The ‘CRPF authorities cannot be absolved of their responsibility of maintaining the records and the CCTV footage for the period,’ the bench noted. The officials were not able to trace the missing employee for over 11 years while he was under rehabilitation following amputation of leg.

“If such an approach is adopted by authorities of CRPF it would discourage the families from sending their wards to serve the force,” the verdict said.