Photo: Ji-Elle / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Assistant Commissioner of Police Manasvi Vashishtha, the officer who led an unusual protest by Delhi Police personnel outside the force’s own headquarters on Monday, has been placed under suspension for “violation of discipline”, police sources said on Tuesday, November 3. Hours later, the Delhi High Court turned down a request from lawyers to act on its own against the officer, telling them to approach it through a formal petition instead.
From transfer to suspension in a week
Mr Vashishtha, until recently the Sub-Divisional Police Officer of Gandhi Nagar, and Arun Kumar, Station House Officer of Shahdara police station, were moved out of their posts after district court lawyers went on an indefinite strike. The ACP was shifted to the Special Police Unit for Women and Children and the SHO to the Security Branch, and the lawyers ended their strike once the orders came through.
On Monday morning, roughly a hundred personnel gathered at Gate No. 1 of Police Headquarters on Jai Singh Road from about 8 am, carrying placards and asking to meet Police Commissioner Anurag Kumar and for the two officers to be reinstated. The Commissioner and senior officers met them after nearly three hours. According to a police officer, the group put forward five demands, among them a standard operating procedure for confrontations with lawyers, a cap of five lawyers entering a police station at one time, FIRs against lawyers accused of misconduct, a cell at headquarters to handle complaints against advocates, and police deployment inside court complexes.
We have placed our demands before the Commissioner… they are being discussed.
ACP Manasvi Vashishtha, speaking during Monday’s protest
High Court declines suo motu action
On Tuesday, a group of lawyers urged a bench of Acting Chief Justice Nitin Sambre and Justice Sanjay Sharma to take suo motu cognisance of remarks allegedly made by the ACP during the protest, claiming that derogatory language had been used against the legal fraternity and that there had been threats involving weapons such as AK-47s. The bench told them it is a court of record, asked them to file a petition with whatever material they had, and assured them it would be listed and examined.
The Central Delhi court bar association had already written to the Police Commissioner on Monday seeking a criminal case against the officer and an independent, time-bound inquiry. The Rohini court bar association, meanwhile, withdrew its call to abstain from work on Tuesday after the suspension was announced.
How the dispute began
The standoff traces back to October 23, when advocate Lalit Bansal allegedly suffered a serious head injury in an assault, and lawyers went to Shahdara police station seeking the arrest of those named. Bar bodies allege the accused were released despite assurances and that, when advocates returned, the ACP displayed his revolver and intimidated them. Police have given a different account, saying the confrontation arose from a dispute between two groups over a motorcycle incident. A separate case has been registered over alleged misbehaviour with on-duty police staff, and the allegation about the service weapon is under investigation.
What happens next
The lawyers are expected to file their petition before the High Court, while the departmental action against the ACP proceeds. The episode has revived old tensions between Delhi’s police and its bar, and the force has yet to say publicly how it will respond to the personnel’s demands for clearer rules on dealing with lawyers.
