New delhi,January 06:Former IAS officer Rupan Deol Bajaj on Tuesday demanded that the government should withdraw the Padma Shri awarded to former Punjab DGP KPS Gill, who was convicted for molesting her.
Bajaj, who is an information commissioner in Punjab, said Gill’s conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court and he should also be stripped of his decorations.
Gill, however, dismissed the demand as “ nonsense.” He was also unperturbed if the medals given to him were taken away by the government. “ I never asked for it. They gave it to me.
They can take away all the 20 medals,” Gill said.
Gill was convicted in 1996 by the Supreme Court for misbehaving with Bajaj and was asked to pay a fine. But before this conviction, Gill was awarded the Police Medal for Meritorious Service in 1972, President’s Police medal in 1975 and the Padma Shri in 1988.
“ The government should deal with him in the manner it is proceeding against Haryana’s former DGP SPS Rathore after he was convicted for molesting teenager Ruchika Girhotra,” Bajaj said.
“ The message should go out to society that such persons do not deserve to have these high decorations,” she added.
Bajaj said Rathore would not have dared to molest Ruchika, had Gill not been given Padma Shri. Rathore believed if such things can happen even to IAS officers, he could also get away with molesting the innocent schoolgirl.
The former DGP was decorated with Padma Shri in 1989 for his meritorious services as a civil servant.
The ministry of home affairs ( MHA), however, was tightlipped on whether Gill’s Padam Shri should be withdrawn in the wake of Rathore medal being withdrawn.
Sources explained that a “ generic decision” was taken on Monday by the Central President Awards Committee to authorise the Union home secretary to recommend withdrawal of police medal to all persons convicted for moral turpitude and for an act that brings disrespect to police forces.
Whether this decision will apply with retrospective effect on all convicted officers or would it be a decision based on a case- to- case basis is still to be finalised by the MHA, a source said.
Apart from Gill and the former Haryana inspector general R. K. Sharma, who was convicted for the murder of journalist Shivani Bhatnagar, there are many other police officers in the country who have been convicted in moral turpitude cases, a source said.
The two- term Punjab DGP is hailed for controlling the insurgency in Punjab and also commanding Operation Black Thunder to flush out militants from the Golden Temple in 1988.