Hours after Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s statement that there is no political interference in police transfers, the Police Establishment Board (PEB) had to meet again on Saturday evening and modified its earlier order. The board had earlier issued orders transferring over 600 police officers.
Sources said the modification was done with respect to 45-50 officers — inspectors and deputy superintendents of police. The state government released the modified list of transferred police officers on Saturday after the PEB meeting.
The changes, sources said, were made after some ministers and MLAs were not happy with the transfers of certain officers.
Last week, the PEB had finalised the transfer list and the State government issued the order. The list included 135 DySPs and 498 inspectors. The inspectors working with law and order stations in the city were transferred to non-executive posts and also to rural stations.
In the first list, more than 50 inspectors in Bangalore were transferred.
Siddaramaiah had on Saturday morning stated that the government was not interfering in the transfer of police officers, done by the PEB. However, even before the officers could take charge in their new postings, the order was withheld.
Siddaramaiah had reportedly held an emergency meeting with Home Minister K J George and senior officials of the department here on Friday and had reportedly instructed them orally to put the transfers on hold.
PEB members refused to comment. “I do not want to comment,” was all that DG&IGP Lalrokhuma Pachau, who is also the head of the PEB, said.
ADGP (Administration) Alok Mohan, who is the member-secretary of the board, could not be reached.
George, however, said that modification is a ‘common’ phenomenon when such large-scale transfers take place. “I am not the person to comment on the transfers since PEB is taking care of it. If there have been modifications, PEB should answer why there was a second list. Besides, modification is not a new thing when more than 500 officers’ transfers are taking place,” he told Express.
A police inspector said that the transfers shouldn’t have been delayed so long. Now, the list has to be re-worked by the PEB. “Large-scale transfers in the last week of September itself is a bad practice since it is an odd time. When PEB is in charge of transfers then, where is the question of modification?” he said.
The state government will have to answer many questions over the transfers, though officially it is the responsibility of the PEB to finalise the list.