BENGALURU: The state government will file a “suitable reply as per the procedure of law” to the notice issued by the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) following the affidavit filed by the Director General of Police (DGP) MN Reddi, sources in the Home Department told The New Indian Express.
The CAT on Tuesday had issued notices to the state and Central governments after Reddi, who is currently serving as the Chief of Fire & Emergency Services, Home Guards, Civil Defence & State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), filed an affidavit before the Tribunal challenging the appointment of the incumbent Director General & Inspector General of Police Neelamani N Raju on the grounds that the state government did not follow Supreme Court guidelines on police reforms while appointing her as the Head of Police Force (HoPF) in 2017.
His submission stated that the state did not send the names of the seniormost IPS officers to the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) for the purpose of selection of the police chief. This may “change the procedure adopted by the state government in future appointments of the HoPFs. It cannot have a retrospective effect,” said some of the officers.
The architect of police reforms, former DGP of Uttar Pradesh and Assam, and ex-Chief of Border Security Force (BSF) Prakash Singh told The New Indian Express that any deviation from the Supreme Court guidelines (on police reforms) should have been challenged when the state had amended the Karnataka Police Act in 2012 to make its own rules regarding the appointment of the DG&IGP and not when the incumbent officer has completed a year and seven months
in office.
“It will now depend upon how the government explains its position before the competent authorities (CAT and Supreme Court) and how they will interpret it,” said Prakash. He gave the recent example of Nagaland, where in April this year the apex court had dismissed the contempt petition filed by the Concerned People of Nagaland (CPN) against the state government on the same grounds that the they did not send the names of the seniormost IPS officers to the UPSC while appointing the incumbent DGP, T John Longkumer.
The Nagaland government had brought it to the notice of the court that for the purpose of empanelment with the UPSC, a list of names of IPS officers, who had put in 30 years of service should be sent, but there was no IPS officer of Nagaland cadre who had completed 30 years of service.Whatever be the case with Reddi going to CAT, the slugfest for the post of DG&IGP has come back to haunt the government. In 2011 and 2012 the state saw at least five DGPs staking their claim over the coveted top post in the courts of law.