SC dismisses dentist's plea seeking probe against former Delhi Police chief Rakesh Asthana
New Delhi, Feb 20: The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a dentist's plea against a Delhi High Court order which rejected his petition to prosecute former Delhi Police commissioner Rakesh Asthana under the Prevention of Corruption Act based on his complaint.
A bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Prasanna Bhalachandra Varale said, "No interference is called for under Article 136 of the Constitution." the bench said.
Article 136 refers to the discretionary powers of the Supreme Court to allow special leave petitions.
The top court was hearing a plea filed by Chandigarh-resident Dr Mohit Dhawan against the Delhi High Court order.
The high court had on February 15, 2021 dismissed his plea seeking directions to the Centre, Central Vigilance Commission and CBI to investigate and launch criminal prosecution on his complaint against Asthana.
The high court had rejected the plea with a cost of Rs 20,000 on the petitioner in favour of the Delhi High Court Legal Services Committee.
In his plea in the apex court, Dhawan claimed the high court erred in not recognising that the CVC failed in performing its constitutional duty by just sitting over his criminal complaint against Asthana under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The plea alleged the high court had not appreciated that both the CVC and CBI have failed to adjudicate upon the criminal complaints filed by the petitioner.
Dhawan contended that he had filed a complaint against Asthana before the CBI director in 2019 but there was no action.
He had levelled allegations of extortion, harassment and fabrication of documents by police.
The dentist had earlier moved the apex court seeking directions to investigate and launch criminal prosecution against Asthana on the basis of his allegations.
However, he had on February 8, 2021 withdrawn the plea from the apex court and said that he would approach the Punjab and Haryana High Court high court to pursue the remedy.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
