One the UK’s most senior female Asian police officers has launched a discrimination lawsuit against the Metropolitan police.

Temporary Ch Supt Parm Sandhu has brought an employment tribunal claim, alleging she has been denied promotion and work opportunities on the basis of her race and gender.

The move comes shortly after Sandhu was cleared of allegations that she breached rules about honours nominations. She was accused of gross misconduct over allegations that she encouraged colleagues to support her nomination for a Queen’s Police Medal. National Police Chiefs’ Council guidelines state “any person can nominate any other person for an honour” but people are not supposed to nominate themselves.

In 2006 Sandhu was presented with an Asian Women of Achievement public sector award, in part for her work in the aftermath of the 7 July 2005 London bombings.

Sandhu was placed on restricted duties while the allegations were looked into but investigators concluded last month that there was no case to answer.

A Metropolitan police spokesman said: “The Met’s directorate of professional standards began an investigation into the conduct of three officers following an allegation they breached guidelines relating to the UK honours nomination process.

“The investigation concluded in June 2019 and found there was no case to answer for gross misconduct or misconduct in relation to any of the officers. The [discrimination] claim will be heard on a date yet to be confirmed. It would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage.”

Sandhu, who is of Indian heritage, is one of a very small number of female Asian police officers at senior levels across England and Wales.

Last year, there were six Asian chief superintendents and three officers at a higher rank; most of them were male.

Sandhu, 54, is being backed by the Metropolitan Black Police Association, which says it is concerned about the lack of senior female ethnic minority officers. She has not commented publicly on her discrimination claim but did retweet a BBC article about the case on Saturday.

The Metropolitan police came under pressure earlier this year over allegations that black and Asian officers are more likely to be lower paid.

A report in January found that the pay gap in the force between white officers and their black and Asian counterparts had widened over the previous year.

The findings, the second ethnic police pay audit by the Met, found that black and Asian police officers working in London were paid £1.80 an hour less than their white colleagues last year, compared with £1.52 in 2017. All 37 senior officers on salaries of £100,000-plus were white, it found, while minority ethnic officers received fewer and smaller bonuses than their colleagues.