Raj cadre IPS officer dismissed for extramarital affair

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs has dismissed an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, Pankaj Kumar Choudhary, from service following an extramarital relationship complaint filed by his wife.

The order of MHA dated February 19 was pasted outside 2009-batch IPS officer of Rajasthan cadre Pankaj Choudhary's official residence in Gandhi Nagar on Wednesday by Bajaj Nagar police. Choudhary was recently transferred to Jhalawar as Commandant of Police Training School, and has been on leave due to medical reasons.

According to the order, Choudhary has been dismissed from service due to personal misconduct. The action has been taken after the complaint filed by Sudha Gupta, who married the IPS officer on December 4, 2005 in Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. According to the complainant, Choudhary had entered into a physical relationship with another woman and fathered a child from her when he was not legally separated from his wife.

The order pasted outside his house reads, "Choudhary has been dismissed as he failed to maintain integrity in the capacity of a senior officer. Without getting legally divorced from (his wife), he had a relation with another woman as wife and fathered a male child from her".

Conduct rules

The order further refers to violation of Rule 3(1) of the All India Service (Conduct) Rules, 1968, which provides that every member of the service shall maintain absolute integrity and devotion to duty and will commit nothing unlawful.

Forty-four-year-old Choudhary said he would challenge his dismissal in court. "I had submitted my divorce papers but the department has not forwarded them. It's an injustice to me and I will take the legal route to tackle it," Choudhary told media.

In August 2018, Sudha Gupta had submitted a complaint to Rajasthan State Commission for Women (RSCW) accusing Choudhury of being in a live-in relationship with another woman while being legally married to her.