HYDERABAD: The Telangana high court has directed the CRPF to disburse all admissible service and pensionary benefits to the legal heirs of M Srikanth, a physically challenged CRPF constable originally posted to CRPF’s elite counterinsurgency and anti-Naxal wing CoBRA, who went missing from a CISF campus in Delhi on June 1, 2015, and was later removed from service.He lost his leg in a train accident while returning to resume duties and was declared unfit for combat. A division bench, comprising Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice GM Mohiuddin, quashed the removal order and ordered payment of benefits to Srikanth’s legal heirs, subject to an indemnity bond. The bench ruled that denying benefits to the family in such circumstances would discourage families from sending their wards to serve in the force.Srikanth, a native of Guntur, had joined the paramilitary force in 2005 and was posted to the C 207 CoBRA Battalion, an elite, specialised unit of the force specifically designed for counterinsurgency and jungle warfare operations against Naxalites. He was declared unfit for combat after losing his left leg after accidentally falling from a running train in 2012. He was then returning to duty after leave.In 2015, he was sent to the CRPF Group Centre in Jharodakalan, New Delhi, for a skill development programme for personnel with disabilities.He went missing days before he was scheduled to return home. CRPF initially lodged a missing person complaint and obtained an arrest warrant but later conducted an ex parte departmental inquiry and terminated his service in Jan 2017 on grounds of unauthorised absence. Challenging the removal and denial of benefits to the family, Srikanth’s father M Appa Rao moved high court.Petitioner’s counsel G Pavana Murthy argued that removing a missing employee was arbitrary and illegal and sought quashing of the ex parte removal order and release of benefits to the family.He said authorities insisted that Appa Rao lodge a missing complaint at their native place instead of processing benefits despite there being no clarity on Srikanth’s whereabouts. “Had it been a case where in ordinary course of duty and beyond duty hours the constable had gone missing, the family of the employee was obliged to file a missing report. But since he disappeared from the campus, the responsibility lies with the authorities, moreover he being a disabled person,” argued Murthy.Although CRPF contended that Srikanth was a habitual offender of indiscipline, high court found the removal unsustainable. The bench said that since Srikanth disappeared from the precincts of the Group Centre while under the command of the administration, he was effectively in the custody of his “regimental family”. The court raised concern over CRPF’s claim that the registers and CCTV footage from the period of his disappearance had “weeded out” or erased despite a 2022 court order to produce them. It also noted that investigations by the Guntur police confirmed that Srikanth never returned to his native village.
