Officers who have minimum tenure of 6 months left to qualify for DGP post

NEWDELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that only those officers who have a minimum tenure of six months left in service should be considered for the post of director general of police (DGP) in states.

A bench led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi said the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), India’s central recruiting agency, must prepare a list of officers who have a minimum residual tenure of six months and make recommendations purely on the basis of merit.

The bench clarified its July 3, 2018 order that asked UPSC to consider only those Indian Police Service officers for appointment as DGP who have two years of service left. It disposed of an application filed by a former DGP of Uttar Pradesh, Prakash Singh, on whose public interest litigation (PIL) the court had issued a string of directives on police reforms.

In the July order, the court had restrained all states and Union Territories from appointing any police officer as acting DGPS to avoid favouritism and nepotism in such high-level appointments.

Singh claimed in his application that the July 3 order was being misused by states which had ignored competent senior officers. After the apex court’s order, the UPSC, while empanelling officers for the DGP post, was considering the minimum residual tenure required to be taken into account as two years. As a result, brilliant officers have been overlooked just because they did not have two years of service left, the application said.it was also made clear that the court direction will “hold the field” until validity of Police Acts are decided by the top court