‘Fill up 102 driver posts, but not with constables’

Pulling up the state government and the police force, the Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal (MAT) recently said that it is the basic responsibility of these authorities to fill up vacancies in the force that are necessar y to run the administration. MAT has, accordingly, ordered both the government as well as the state police force to fill up the 102 posts of drivers that are lying vacant since 2011. A single bench of Chairperson Justice Mridula Bhatkar has also said that if a constable is kept as a driver for more than three years, then there are chances that s/he may lose fitness and other abilities of investigation.

The tribunal was seized with a plea filed by Nikhil Gaikwad, who was initially taken in the force as a police constable, but for the six years of his career has been posted as a driver in the force's motor transport division, Pune. Gaikwad petitioned Justice Bhatkar's bench, seeking directives to the higher authorities to transfer him to a police station as a constable. However, the superintendent of police cited that there are 102 vacancies of drivers in the force and, thus, he can't be sent to a police station.