VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, July 11: The Jharkhand High court has deferred hearing of the quashing petition of DSP Pramod Mishra till December 9. Pramod Mishra had filed a petition for quashing of the criminal proceedings against him in the wake of the FIR lodged by Padmavati Orain who is mother of deceased ASI of Jharkhand police Rupa Tirkey.
The quashing petition CRMP 1988/2022 was listed for hearing today before the court of Justice Sanjay Dwivedi who had ordered a CBI probe into the suspected murder of Rupa Tirkey. Pankaj Mishra, the MLA representative of Chief Minister Hemant Soren is the second accused in this case.
Sometimes after the death of Rupa Tirkey, some of her private conversations with her friend Shiv Kumar Kanaujia became viral. The family alleged that the DSP leaked the audio clips to tarnish her image. The worst happened when another audio of a telephonic conversation of the DSP with a private person became viral. In the audio, the DSP is claimed to be talking to a private person over phone and he is heard casting aspersions on the character of Rupa Tirkey and making sexiest remarks. Padmavati Orain lodged an FIR at the ST SC police station in Ranchi against Pramod Mishra who was posted as DSP of Barharwa in Sahibganj district. She named Pankaj Mishra.
In the petition, Pramod Mishra has claimed that he was implicated on a false and frivolous allegation. He said that he was the member of the special investigation team assigned with the task of investigating the murder case when he got a call from a journalist who wanted to know the current status of the investigation. But he did not make any statement on account of the victim belonging to the SC ST community.
Further, the DSP has contended that even if the allegations against him is true that he used derogatory language against a member of the SC/ST community during telephonic conversation it doesn’t attract the section 2 (1) (r) of Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. The section defines any act of intentional insult or intimidation with an intention to humiliate a member of the SC/ST in any place within public view. He has stated that a private conversation can’t be treated as a public view.
