Assam: Court Directs FIR against Nalbari District Commissioner Varnali Deka

GUWAHATI: A local court in Assam has directed the registration of an FIR against the Nalbari District Commissioner, Varnali Deka.

According to reports, the complaint was filed by Circle Officer Arpana Sarmah. Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) P Goswami has given this order after Sarmah claimed that Deka had misbehaved with her while she was performing her duty related to an election on May 7, 2024.

The complaint alleges that Sarmah was stationed to guard activities at the EVM receipt center on night shift when Deka subjected her to harassment and intimidation in the manner that created a situation to make her job difficult for her to carry out during her shift. Sarmah says she had been forced to capture parts of the incident with her mobile phone to provide evidence about Deka's conduct that was so disturbing.

The incident reportedly turned ugly when Sarmah was allegedly running for her life chased by Deka in the EVM receipt center premises. Fearing for her life thereafter, Sarmah ran to the Nalbari Police Station and lodged a complaint at around 2:09 AM on May 8, 2024.

Though Sarmah lodged the complaint at the earliest instance possible, she was not registered with an FIR by Nalbari Police Station officials, hence she ran to court for redressal of the grievance. At the time of hearing, Additional CJM P. Goswami quoted the order of the Supreme Court in the case of *Lalita Kumari vs. State of Uttar Pradesh*. An FIR compulsorily required to be filed. Goswami emphasized that not registering an FIR is a serious matter as there is a resultant allegation of probable misuse of authority by a government official.

The court order opined that Sarmah's experience deserves probing and ordered Nalbari Police Station to lodge an FIR without any further delay. The court has ordered an into into Sarmah's allegations of harassment and intimidation against Deka.

Sarmah was suspended on May 15, 2024, following the incident. The suspension order accused her of "abandonment of election duties, insubordination, disruptive behavior and negligence in tasks related to Lok Sabha elections." The Election Commission also suspended her and recommended further departmental proceedings against her.

This is not the first time Commissioner Deka has been in the news for alleged misbehavior. In January 2023, she was under similar allegations of assault on an employee in her office at a time when Deka was still Kokrajhar District Commissioner. While little is known of the outcome of that case, the situation places her under a mounting list of controversies over Deka's conduct in office.

The court has further directed Nalbari Police Station to register the FIR based on the complaint made by Sarmah. The correctness of the allegations and the need for further action against Deka will be decided upon this investigation. This case has brought much attention to the conduct of public officials and mechanisms of redress available for complaints of harassment and misuse of power in government offices.