A former IPS officer petitioned the Supreme Court on Tuesday challenging his dismissal from service, alleging the Centre had victimised him because of his role in court-monitored investigations that declared the 2004 killing of Ishrat Jahan in BJP-ruled Gujarat a fake encounter.

Satish Chandra Verma also claims to have unearthed, in 2016, large-scale financial irregularities — allegedly involving heavyweights in the central government — in the North Eastern Electric Power Corporation (Neepco), a central public sector enterprise in Shillong.

The former Gujarat-cadre officer says he was sacked on August 30 this year despite Delhi High Court restraining any “prejudicial” action against him till the next hearing on January 24 next year. Verma was to retire on September 30 this year.

Ishrat, a 19-year-old college girl from Mumbai, and three companions — Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar — were shot dead by police in Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004.

The Gujarat police alleged the quartet were Lashkar-e-Toiba operatives who had arrived in the state to assassinate then chief minister Narendra Modi.

Verma’s petition says he had been part of a Gujarat High Court-monitored special investigation team (SIT) that had in December 2011 declared the killings stage-managed.

After this, the petition says, Gujarat High Court entrusted the investigation to the CBI and asked the central agency to take Verma’s help.

It adds that the assistance Verma provided to the CBI “was instrumental in disclosure of the conspiracy involving officers of Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Gujarat police, which aggravated the displeasure of the state against him (Verma)”.

The petition alleges that “false complaints” were filed against Verma even while the SIT probe was on, prompting Gujarat High Court to order in August 2011 that “when the members of the SIT are acting under the directions of this court, any complaint against the functioning of any member in the course of such investigation is required to be reported to this court and no attempt should be made for creating any hindrance or obstruction in the investigation”.

Thereafter, between November 2011 and May 2014, “retaliatory action by state started against the petitioner”, Verma says, alleging he was falsely implicated in the death of three people in a 1996 incident.

Verma says he was dismissed on the basis of a “charge memo” issued to him on August 13, 2018, on the alleged grounds of indiscipline for a media interaction he had held in March 2016 on the Ishrat “encounter” while he was posted at Neepco.

Verma has underlined the almost two-and-a-half-year gap between the alleged offence and the “charge memo”.

According to the petition, Delhi High Court had on September 22 last year stayed any disciplinary action against Verma by the Union home ministry.

It says the high court vacated the stay on August 30 this year and “allowed the (Centre) to pass final order and had directed that the final order, if prejudicial to the petitioner, shall not be implemented without the leave of the court till the next date of hearing (24.01.2023)”.

“Immediately after the high court passed the order dated 30.08.2022, the (Centre) passed an order on the same date dismissing the petitioner from service ‘with immediate effect’, and served it on the petitioner at Coimbatore on 01.09.2022,” the petition, filed through advocate Divyesh Pratap Singh, adds.

Then, on September 7, Delhi High Court allowed the Union home ministry to impose a “penalty of dismissal from service with immediate effect” pursuant to the August 30 order, the petition says.

It adds that the high court issued no notice to Verma before passing this order.

Several of the police officers involved in the Ishrat “encounter” now face prosecution before a trial court in Gujarat.

Verma has claimed that “during the investigation, officers of the state attempted to tamper with witnesses/evidence”.

He says that between mid-February 2016 and March 3, 2016, “a concerted media campaign (was) started to discredit the evidence in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case”.

“Senior members of the ruling party and private persons (retired officers) joined in the campaign. Specifically, false accusations of torture were made by Shri R.V.S. Mani against the petitioner,” Verma says.

Mani, now retired, was an undersecretary at the Union home ministry. The CBI had examined him as a witness in the Ishrat case.