THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Kerala government has decided to extend the tenure of incumbent state police chief Anil Kant till June 30, 2023. Belonging to the 1988 IPS batch, Anil Kant was appointed to the post on June 30, 2021.
He was scheduled to attain superannuation on January 31, 2022. But the government decided to extend his tenure on the basis of the Supreme Court's recommendation on police reform where the apex court had fixed the tenure of the state police chief as two years.
Anil Kant was the first police chief to be appointed in the state on the basis of the Supreme Court's revised verdict in the Prakash Singh case.
The extension of his tenure has diminished the prospects of DGPs Sudesh Kumar and B Sandhya, who had been included in the three-member shortlist forwarded by the Centre to the state government for appointment to the post of state police chief. After Loknath Behera's retirement, the state government had picked Anil Kant as his replacement.
Had he not been granted an extension, then Sudesh and Sandhya among others would have been included in the list that the state would have sent to the Centre for appointment as state police chief.