UP govt counsel misleads court in riot case, sacked

Lucknow: UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s government in Uttar Pradesh has relieved government counsel Vimlendu Tripathi of his charge. He had misled the Allahabad high court on a case in which Yogi Adityanath was the main accused.

A GO issued by special secretary, law, Brijesh Kumar Misra, on Thursday, stated that the order of April 23, 2017 appointing Vimlendu Tripathi as government counsel was being cancelled.

According to sources, Mr Tripathi is the first casualty of the pending criminal case against Yogi Adityanath in the 2007 Gorakhpur communal riot case pending before the Allahabad high court.

Vimlendu Tripathi has reportedly been punished following the Allahabad high court’s adverse comment against him. The division bench of justices Ramesh Sinha and Umesh Chandra Srivastava had charged Tripathi of misleading the court to complicate issues by not letting the court know on May 4 that the principal secretary Home, who is the competent authority in the matter, had already taken a decision the previous day, that is on May 3, refusing the sanction for prosecution against chief minister Yogi Adityanath, the main accused in the case. On May 4, the court passed an order calling upon the UP chief secretary to clarify whether on the Draft Final Report, which was submitted by the Crime Branch of the Crime Investigation Department (CB-CID) after investigation, was pending for approval or grant of sanction for prosecution of the accused was awaited.

The court termed as “painful and disturbing” the fact that Mr Tripathi did not inform the court on the matter though he later offered an oral apology. The petition under consideration had been filed by social activist Parvez Parwaz along with advocate Asad Hayat.