Karnataka top cop ‘worse than Saddam or Gadaffi’: HC

The Karnataka High Court on Friday upheld a recent Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) order removing Shankar M Bidari, one of Karnataka's most decorated police officers, as the state's director general and inspector general of police (DG&IGP) over his poor human rights record.

In a stinging rebuke, a division bench comprising Justice N Kumar and Justice H S Kempanna Bidari as ''worse than Saddam Hussain or Muammar Gaddafi'' for alleged atrocities committed by the Special Task Force led by him during the hunt to for sandalwood and ivory poacher Veerappan more than 20 years ago.

Dismissing as "without merit and substance", petitions by the government and Bidari challenging the CAT order, the bench held his empanelment by the Union Public Service Commission and consequent appointment as "void and illegal".

The court said Bidari should be replaced immediately with DG (fire and emergency services, civil defence and home guards) A R Infant "if the state has any respect for the rule of law, womanhood and human rights and any concern for the downtrodden and the backward classes in society".

Upholding the verdict of Central Administrative Tribunal the court said, "In the facts of the case, we cannot find any infirmity in the said decision. It is just."

It struck down Bidari's contentions "absolving himself of the responsibility" of atrocities by stating he was only Deputy Commander of the Joint Task Force of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to nab Veerappan and not "omnipresent and omnipotent like Saddam Hussain or Muammar Gaddafi".