The Supreme Court recently recalled its 2021 order that had resulted in the indefinite suspension of 32 Tihar Jail officials accused of providing undue privileges to former Unitech promoters, Sanjay and Ajay Chandra, following their arrest in a homebuyers’ cheating case.
A Bench comprising Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh noted that allowing an indefinite suspension was unreasonable, as it caused significant financial loss to the State exchequer. The Court also pointed out that the officials had been suspended for over 3.5 years.
The Court instructed the competent authority to review whether each suspended official should be reinstated, with a decision to be made within four weeks. The order stated, “We recall the directions in paragraph 2 of the order dated 06.10.2021 and leave it entirely to the discretion of the Competent Authority to examine the cases of all officers/officials under suspension and decide on their reinstatement.”
The Court clarified that it had not formed any opinion on the merits of the allegations against the officials and that departmental proceedings or criminal cases would proceed as per the law.
The matter began in August 2020 when the Enforcement Directorate (ED) alerted the Delhi Police about the alleged misuse of Tihar Jail facilities by Sanjay and Ajay Chandra, who were said to have been given unauthorized access to privileges. The Supreme Court ordered their transfer from Tihar Jail to jails in Mumbai.
On October 6, 2021, the Court acknowledged an inquiry report by the then Commissioner of Delhi Police, Rakesh Asthana, which suggested that several Tihar jail officials were involved in providing favours to the Chandra brothers. Based on the report, the Court allowed the Delhi Police Crime Branch to investigate the matter under the Prevention of Corruption Act and the IPC.
The Court had ordered the suspension of the officials involved in these alleged actions, pending further investigation. One such official was Chet Ram Meena, an Assistant Superintendent at Tihar, who was suspended in October 2021. Meena had repeatedly sought reinstatement, claiming full cooperation with the investigation and denying any wrongdoing. His application for relief was granted by the Court, which relaxed its previous suspension order.
