SC refuses bail to R'than IPS officer

Meena involved in racket, misuse of office

Supreme Court on Friday refused to grant bail to senior Rajasthan cadre IPS officer Rajesh Meena arrested in connection with criminal cases, including that of extracting money through racket and misuse of office.

The court said it was not inclined to grant any relief to Meena, who was SP (Ajmer) at the time of his arrest on January 2, till charges were framed in the case.

“Three chargesheets have been filed. Till the charges are framed, we are not inclined to grant him relief,” a bench comprising chief justice P Sathasivam and justice Ranjan Gogoi said.

However, the apex court asked the trial court to try to complete the procedure of framing of charges within three months. The court also noted that there were some doubtful entries in the bank passbook of the officer.

Meena was arrested along with one Ramdev, who claimed himself to be an astrologer, by anti-corruption unit of the state police which had raided the official residence of the IPS officer and recovered around Rs 5 lakh from their possession (Rs 2 lakh from astrologer and
Rs 3 lakh from the residence of the officer).

It was alleged that the astrologer was acting as middleman for collecting hafta (extracting money illegally) from different police stations on behalf of the SP.

The court was informed that among the 11 SHOs whose names have surfaced in the case, nine are under observation and the two who were absconding, have surrendered.

The state government said the raid was conducted after monitoring 450 telephone calls to the officer, who was also allegedly engineering a compromise in a SC/ST case by sitting over the files and at the behest of land mafias who wanted a particular shop to be vacated.