The arrest of senior IAS officer Ashok Khemka in a case filed under the Prevention of Corruption Act in Panchkula was stayed by the Punjab and Haryana high court on Tuesday. On Khemka’s plea, a high court bench led by Justice Avneesh Jhingan issued an order.
‘Acting on the plea, the high court has issued notice of motion and stayed his arrest,’ his lawyer Arshdeep Singh Cheema said in a statement. Sanjeev Verma, the managing director of the Haryana State Warehousing Corporation (HSWC), filed the complaint on April 26 at the Sector-5 police station in Panchkula.
When Khemka was its MD, he was accused of making appointments at HSWC in an illegal and arbitrary manner. Other members of the screening committee that chose candidates were left out, according to the petition, and only the petitioner was named as an accused. The FIR was filed without the approval of the relevant authority under Section 17-A of the PC Act, 1988, which is a legal requirement for a public servant’s protection.
Even if the allegations in the FIR were genuine, the issuance of appointments by the petitioner was only a follow-up ministerial act, pursuant to the executive committee’s selection, the plea claimed.
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