However, the court has granted bail to IPS Rajesh Das and given him 30 days to appeal. The woman SP had accused Das of sexual harassment at the beginning of 2021. At that time, he was working as the Director-General of Police (Law and Order). Prior to this, the Tamil Nadu government had suspended Rajesh Das pending inquiry. Rajesh Das, former DGP (Law and Order) of Tamil Nadu Police, is possibly the third senior IPS officer to be convicted of sexual misconduct during service. Both SP Ratlhad and KPS Gill have also been convicted.
Before Das, senior police officers SPS Rathore and KPS Gill were also found guilty of sexual harassment. Rathore was convicted in 1990 for molesting 14-year-old Ruchika Girhotra. This incident happened when Rathore was the Director-General of Police in Haryana. Rising tennis player Ruchika had committed suicide because her family and friends were harassed, and the police had illegally detained her brother. Rathore was sentenced to 6 months in jail in 2009, which was later reduced due to his age.
The sentence of Rathore was increased to 18 months based on the evidence presented by the CBI, which was investigating the case. The Supreme Court granted Rathore bail in November 2010 on the condition that he stay in Chandigarh. He later upheld Rathore's sentence in the molestation case but reduced it by 6 months considering his age. Former Punjab Police chief KPS Gill was found guilty of molesting a female IAS officer, but the Punjab and Haryana High Court changed his 3-month jail sentence to probation. Gill had slapped the IAS officer on her back.
The Supreme Court had upheld Gill's conviction by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2005. Gill was found guilty of molesting a woman IAS officer in Chandigarh on January 6, 1996. He was accused of groping IAS officer Rupan Deol Bajaj at a party organized at his residence in an inebriated state. Another IPS officer, P.S. Natarajan, was dismissed from service in 2012 on charges of sexual harassment but was acquitted by a Jharkhand court in 2017 due to insufficient evidence. Kannan was reprimanded by the Madras High Court.
During the hearing on Kannan's review petition in the recent case, the Madras High Court had said in 2021, "If a woman IPS officer can be a victim of sexual harassment, there is no need to talk about the lower-ranking female police officers in the hierarchy." Kannan was accused of preventing the woman IPS officer from filing a complaint against Das. Kannan had appealed to dismiss himself from the case, stating that the woman officer had visited him with a marriage proposal.
