K'taka: SC stays order on Bidari's appointment

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed the Karnataka High Court order which had quashed the appointment of Shankar Bidari as director general of state police, dubbing him as "worse than Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi."

A bench of Justice Aftab Alam and Justice C K Prasad asked the state high court to examine afresh the matter and dispose it of before May 31.

The apex court while staying the high court's March 30 order, said the latter had passed the impugned order on assumptions without going into the findings of the Justice Sadashiva Commission and National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), which, according to Bidari, had given him a clean chit in the case of alleged excesses and sexual abuse perpetrated by the Joint STF on tribal women.

The high court had earlier quashed Bidari's appointment saying that he was indicted by the commission as he was the deputy commandant at the time of the alleged excesses committed by the Joint STF of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, set up to track down forest brigand and notorious sandalwood smuggler Veerappan.

The apex court said it was of a prima facie view that the findings of the Sadashiva Commission and NHRC were not relevant considerations for the empanelled officers, yet, it said, it was not going into the merits of the issue at this stage and left it to the high court to decide the same.

While former Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam appeared for Bidari, senior counsel U U Lalit appeared for the Karnataka government.

Another senior counsel Altaf Ahmed appeared for senior IPS officer A R Infant on whose petition the high court had passed the impugned order.