The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) stayed the charge sheet issued by the state government in May this year at the behest of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah against senior IPS officer Alok Kumar. This is in relation to the 2019 case of the leaked audio clip of legally tapped telephone calls. Then, in 2023, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai found it unnecessary to hold any ministerial proceedings.
Note timing
“The timing of the charge report rightly raises doubts about the propriety of the conduct” of the process of conducting the ministerial inquiry as it was resumed two years after the CM’s previous communication against the inquiry and just days before Mr Kumar’s scheduled elevation to the rank of Director General of Police by the end of May 2025, said its chairman CAT More1 in October handed down4.
The question of the legality of issuing the indictment was referred to the chairman as a division bench of the Bengaluru tribunal gave a different verdict on 4 September in which BK Shrivastava (Member-Judicial) stayed the indictment and Santosh Mehra (Member-Administrative) upheld it.
The Chief Secretary, on the orders of Mr. Siddaramaiah, on May 9 issued a notice along with a charge-sheet against Mr. Kumar under Rule 8 (4) of the All India Services (Disciplinary and Appeal) Rules, 1969. Mr. Kumar, who is currently the Additional Director General of Police (Training), challenged this before the CAT.
Agreeing with the findings of Mr. Shrivastava, the Chairman observed that the question of the need to conduct a departmental inquiry against Mr. Kumar and another IPS officer Bhaskar Rao (now retired) was closed in a decision taken on 9 May 2023 by the then Chief Minister who said, “…therefore, there is no need to conduct a disciplinary inquiry against Mr. I.PS Kumar, issuing an order.
The CAT further found that Mr Siddaramaiah had ordered a departmental inquiry against Mr Kumar in a file submitted for his approval on July 26, 2024, only for informing the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) of the then CM’s decision on May 9, 2023 that “there was no need to conduct an inquiry in any matter of the department”.
The CBI, which was investigating allegations of a leaked audio clip of legally tapped phone calls, filed a “closed report” before a special court in 2021 as it could not prove the allegation that the official audio clip was leaked by either Mr Kumar or Mr Rao. However, the CBI has written to the state government and recommended an inquiry against them to the ministry.
Later, the CBI, on the orders of the special court which refused to accept the closure report, conducted further investigation and again submitted the “closure report” as it could not get any evidence against the police officers and the special court accepted the closure report in February 2024.
The CBI also sent a reminder to the state government in 2024 about the department’s inquiry as it had not received any communication regarding its 2021 letter and in this regard a file was submitted to Mr. Siddaramaiah in July 2024 to specifically communicate the then Chief Minister’s 2023 decision to the CBI.
10 months later
Meanwhile, Mr. Siddaramaiah, in his memo dated May 6, 2025, nearly 10 months after the file was presented to him, ordered a ministerial inquiry into Mr. Kumar, saying he had “reconsidered the 2023 decision to drop the inquiry.”
However, the CAT found fault with this decision because the file before it is not for review or reconsideration of the 2023 decision, but merely to approve the CBI’s communication of the 2023 decision. The CAT also found that there was no new material for the current CM to review the earlier decision, although the law allows for review.
Published – 21 Oct 2025 20:18 IST
