CHENNAI: If the Tamil Nadu government sticks to seniority, the state police will get its second woman chief from September 1 this year.
Incumbent DGP and Head of Police Force (HoPF) Shankar Jiwal’s colleague from the 1990 IPS batch, Seema Agrawal, is the top-ranked among the eight DGP-rank officers who are eligible to make the cut, sources said.
Jiwal’s two-year tenure ends on August 31.
Letika Saran is the only woman officer who has headed the Tamil Nadu police, serving as the HoPF from January 13, 2010, to March 2011.
The TN government has set the process in motion by sending the list of all DGPs eligible for the promotion to the union government. Along with Agrawal, who currently heads the state Fire and Rescue Services, the other DGPs who are eligible to be the HoPF are Rajeev Kumar, Sandeep Rai Rathore, Vannia Perumal, Mahesh Kumar Aggarwal, G Venkatraman, Vinit Wankhede and Sanjay Mathur. Except Perumal, all others have around two years of service left.
Sources in TN police said Agrawal is most likely to be selected with mates from the 1992 batch Rajeev Kumar (currently Chief Vigilance Officer, AAVIN) and Sandeep Rai Rathore (currently DG, Training) in contention to be part of the three senior-most officers empanelled for promotion to the rank by the UPSC. A committee consisting of chairman of UPSC, union home secretary, chief secretary and DGP/HoPF of TN and a top officer from a central agency from some other cadre will empanel the officers. The shortlist will be sent back to TN government which then has to choose one. The officer selected as HoPF will serve a minimum tenure of two years irrespective of their date of superannuation.
According to the latest union government guidelines, the state government must recommend a list of names who hold the post of DGP in Level 16 of pay matrix, has at least six months of service left and has a good service record based on the annual confidential reports.
The period of service left will mean that Seema Agarwal’s senior Pramod Kumar (1989 batch) and Abhay Kumar Singh (1992 batch) are unlikely to make the shortlist as they have less than six months of tenure left.
In addition, the guidelines also stipulate indicative areas for assessing the range of experience of the officer which includes service in Law and Order, Crime Branch/Crime Investigation Department (CB-CID), Economic Offences Wing, Government Railway Police, Intelligence, counter-terrorism and deputation to central agencies like Intelligence Bureau (IB), Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), Enforcement Directorate, Narcotics Control Bureau, etc.