Appointment of Asthana: SC asks HC to hear plea
The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked Delhi high court to hear and decide in two weeks a petition challenging the appointment of IPS officer Rakesh Asthana as Delhi police commissioner just four days before his retirement. The top court had, in July 2018, barred state governments from making ad-hoc appointments of acting police chiefs and directed that no person having less than three months of service would be considered for appointment to head a police force. A petition seeking contempt against PM Narendra Modi, who heads the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, and home minister Amit Shah is also pending.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked Delhi High Court to hear and decide in two weeks a petition challenging the appointment of Gujarat cadre IPS officer Rakesh Asthana as Delhi police commissioner just four days before his retirement in the teeth of top court directions and rules governing the service conditions of the Indian Police Service officers.
Asking Delhi High Court to decide the petition pending before it in two weeks, a bench comprising Chief Justice N.V.Ramana, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and Justice Surya Kant told the lawyer Prashant Bhushan, who was insisting that the challenge to Asthana’s appointment as Delhi police commissioner be heard by the top court, that once High Court decides the challenge they will have the benefit of its judgment.
The court permitted Bhushan to either intervene in the matter pending before the High Court or file a substantive petition as it adjourned the hearing of the petition by the NGO Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) by two weeks during which the High Court will deal with and decide the issue.
“The time is the essence of the matter”, the court said as Solicitor General Tushar Mehta opposing the challenge to Asthana’s appointment urged the court to give four weeks’ time to High Court instead of two weeks as even the notice has not been issued on the petition pending before the High Court.
CJI Ramana said that they can’t decide the way the High Court will go about the matter. At the outset of the hearing, Solicitor General told the top court that a similar petition was pending before Delhi High Court and sought that the entire matter be left to it.
Describing the petition as an “ambush petition” filed in “collusion with government” to stall the hearing of CPIL petition by the top court, Bhushan giving the dates when the petition by CPIL was filed and numbered by the top court registry, said that the petition before the High Court was copy and paste of petition before it (the top court) by NGO CPIL.
In a retaliatory argument, Solicitor General Mehta described as “Surrogate petition” by the CPIL on behalf of those who lost to Asthana in the race for the top position in Delhi police.
Assailing the appointment of Asthana as Delhi police commissioner, Bhushan appearing for CPIL told the it was an “egregious” and “brazen” violation of the 2006 and 2018 top court’s directions in police reform case also known as Prakash Singh case - who is former Director General of Uttar Pradesh police.
The top court by its d in July 3, 2018, order while barring the state governments from making ad-hoc appointment of acting police chiefs had directed that no person having less than three months of service would be considered for appointment to head police force. Prior to this order, the ad-hoc appointment of acting police chiefs was a usual course adopted by some state governments to get-over 2006 directions of the top court.
He said that besides being in the teeth of the 2006 and 2018 directions of the top court, Asthana’s appointment as police commissioner of the national capital was in violation of rules governing the service conditions of the Indian Police Service officers including that of the inter-state change of cadre.
Even as the top court today asked High Court to hear and decode the challenge to the appointment of Asthana so that it could have the benefits of its judgment, a contempt petition by lawyer Manohar Lal Sharma seeking contempt against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah is still pending before it though it was filed soon after the appointment of Asthana as Delhi police commissioner.
The contempt petition by Sharma is rooted in the top court’s July 3, 2018, order.
The contempt petition by lawyer Sharma has contended that Prime Minister Modi heads the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet that had cleared the appointment of Asthana as Delhi police commissioners and Home Minister Shah had issued appointment orders in violation of the top court’s 2018 directions.