BENGALURU: The State Government will soon be sending a revised list of the names of senior-most Indian Police Service (IPS) officers to the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) for empanelment to the post of Director General & Inspector General of Police (DG&IGP).
The Commission had recently returned the file sent by the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms (DPAR). It had asked the government to include the names of all those IPS officers, who have completed 30 years of service and come under the zone of consideration for the top post, in compliance with the Supreme Court guidelines on the appointment of the Head of Police Force (HoPF).
According to sources, the DPAR on Friday sought the biodata of the Additional Directors General of Police (ADGPs) Alok Mohan (Railways), N S Megharikh (Prisons) and R P Sharma (Communications, Logistics & Modernisation) of 1987 batch and P S Sandhu (Commissioner, Traffic & Road Safety), A K Pandey (Law & Order), P Ravindranath (Forest Cell), Sanjay Sahay (Police Computer Wing) and T Suneel Kumar (Recruitment) of 1989 batch of IPS. There are no IPS officers of 1988 batch borne to Karnataka cadre.
The DPAR had, on November 30, sent the names of only three DGP-rank officers — A M Prasad (Internal Security Division), Praveen Sood (Criminal Investigation Department) and P K Garg (Training) of the 1985 and 1986 batches of IPS to the UPSC.
The process of appointment of the new DG&IGP was initiated last month as the incumbent DG&IGP Neelamani N Raju is scheduled to retire on January 31, 2020. DGP and Chief of Fire & Emergency Services, Home Guards, Civil Defence & State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) M N Reddi and DGP-Karnataka State Police Housing Corporation (KSPHC) Raghavendra Auradkar will also retire the same day.
The Supreme Court has issued a set of guidelines to all states and Union Territories on the appointment of the police chief. One of them is to send the names of senior-most IPS officers to the UPSC “at least three months prior to the date of retirement of the incumbent on the post of DGP” for empanelment to the post of HoPF.
The appointment of the DG&IGP will be made by the Chief Minister, who will choose the officer from the UPSC shortlist.