Morung Express News
Dimapur | May 24
Reny Wilfred has moved the High Court for quashing a criminal investigation against him. The suspended IAS officer, of the Nagaland cadre, is facing a police investigation for alleged multiple instances of sexual misconduct at the workplace.
Pending the police investigation, he was placed under suspension by the state government, only, on May 21. He was helming the role of a Joint Secretary in the state Finance Department when the allegations surfaced, and subsequent police investigation.
The legal counsel for the Nagaland State Commission for Women (NSCW), Vrinda Grover told a press conference in Dimapur, on May 25, that Wilfred filed a writ petition in the Gauhati High Court, Kohima Bench, seeking quashing of the police investigation against him. The first hearing for the FIR quashing plea took place on May 23.
He also “sought an interim prayer that the investigation be stayed,” informed Grover, who was accompanied by the Chairperson of the NSCW, W Nginyeih Konyak.
Grover said that they have filed their replies to the court and are ready to argue the matter. According to her, Wilfred’s quashing petition will not stand. “The law on quashing is very clear. It is settled by the Supreme Court. And this particular FIR does not fall within the parameters of that,” she said.
In his petition, the IAS officer has named the members of the NSCW as individual respondents. During the hearing on May 23, she argued that it was inappropriate to individually implead members of a government body, in this case, the NSCW. “I think that is totally unwarranted and improper in law,” she held.
The next hearing for Wilfred’s petition is scheduled on July 22.
The allegation against Wilfred hit the public domain in early April after the NSCW filed a complaint in the Nagaland Police Headquarters. The complaint was filed in March, followed by the PHQ instituting a Special Investigation Team.
The Women Commission based its complaint on verbal information it received from the Chairperson of the Investment and Development Authority of Nagaland (IDAN), Abu Metha. Wilfred was also Joint Secretary of the IDAN, the state government’s flagship investment promotion and facilitation agency.
With a special police investigation facing him, Wilfred denied the charges against him at a press conference he called in Kohima on April 9. He alleged character assassination bid and political conspiracy behind the allegations.
This was followed by a flurry of public demands from the Naga civil society calling for penal action against the bureaucrat.
Wilfred has an ongoing trial in a Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act case, heard by a Special POCSO court in Tuensang. The case dates back to 2021 when Wilfred was the Deputy Commissioner of Noklak district. In this case, he was accused of molesting two domestic workers at his official residence in Noklak.
That case went to trial in Tuensang. He subsequently sought the transfer of the trial to a different court, out of Tuensang, at the High Court citing threat to his safety. His ‘Transfer Appeal’ was rejected.
He was not suspended from his job by the government in connection to this case. Grover termed this as extraordinary. She held it seldom happens, and asked, “A civil servant facing a criminal prosecution involving sexual abuse of two minor girls was not suspended by the government?”
