February 18, 2019:

SC guidelines prescribe a minimum two-year tenure for consideration to the top post.

None of the nine senior IPS officers serving in Tamil Nadu in the rank of Director General of Police (DGP) has the clear two-year service period left to be considered by the Union Public Service Commission for empanelment & appointment as DGP. Appointment to the top post will have to be made after the retirement of incumbent DGP T.K. Rajendran, in June this year.

While one DGP-ranked officer will retire this month end, three others are due for superannuation later this year. Six other officers will retire before June 2020, which means that none of them has the minimum tenure of two years which is recommended for empanelment of DGPs, as per guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court.

The State government seems prepared to promote the next batch of IPS officers, in order to send a panel of three names of people who will satisfy the requirements. As of now, only Mithilesh Kumar Jha, a 1986-batch IPS officer who is on Central deputation serving as Joint Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, New Delhi, is eligible as he has two years’ service left.

Court clarification Clarifying on a petition on the appointment of DGPs by States, the Supreme Court had recently directed the UPSC that “the persons are to be empanelled, as far as practicable, from amongst the people within the zone of consideration who have got clear two years of service. Merit & seniority should be given due weightage”.

The apex court made it clear that all States should send their proposals, in anticipation of the vacancies, to the UPSC at least three months prior to the date of retirement of the incumbent DGP. “None of the States shall ever conceive the of the idea of appointing any person on the post of Director-General of Police on acting basis for there is no concept of acting DGP....”

However, the Supreme Court also said that an endeavour had to be made by all concerned to see that the person who was selected & appointed as the DGP continued despite his date of superannuation. The extended term beyond the date of superannuation should be a reasonable period. “We say so as it has been brought to our notice that some of the States have adopted a practice to appoint the Director General of Police on the last date of retirement as a consequence of which the person continues for two years after his date of superannuation. Such a practice will not be in conformity with the spirit of the direction.”

Going by the promotion rules, an IPS officer who has completed 30 years of service becomes eligible to be promoted as DGP. Now that there is only one eligible candidate for empanelment in the 1986 batch, the State is considering promoting the 1987 batch of IPS officers who are in the rank of Additional Director-General of Police.

“Besides Mr. Jha, there will be three officers in the 1987 batch — Sylendra Babu, Karan Singha & Prateek V Philip — who will be eligible for empanelment. If five names have to be sent, the State government can always include the name of another ADGP rank officer even without promoting him/her since the eligibility is the number of years of service in IPS. But there seems to be some ambiguity since the order doesn’t specifically say officers who have less than two years in service should not be empanelled...”, a senior police official told The Hindu on Wednesday.

In the order of seniority among the serving DGPs, K.P. Maghendran is a 1984-batch officer & due for superannuation this month. Mr. Rajendran, also belonging to the same batch, got posted as DGP before the revised guidelines on the day of his retirement & thus got the benefit of two-year tenure as per the Supreme Court’s earlier guidelines in the Prakash Singh case.

Seeking exemption In the 1985 batch are S.R. Jangid, J.K. Tripathy & C.K. Gandhirajan & in the 1986 batch M.S. Jaffar Sait, Srilakshmi Prasad, Ashutosh Shukla, Mithilesh Kumar Jha, N. Tamil Selvam & Ashish Bengra who will, except Mr. Jha, retire in less than two years.

Meanwhile, sources in the police department say that the State might approach the Supreme Court seeking an exemption in the number of years left for superannuation category this year, since many senior officers who are left with more than one year service might be deprived of the opportunity to head the force. Source Link

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