The petition filed before the Central Administrative Tribunal challenging the appointment of V. Dinesh Reddy as the Director General of Police, allegedly in violation of the Supreme Court's directive, is likely to come up for hearing on Monday.
P. Gautam Kumar, Principal Secretary, Home, who had earlier successfully challenged K.A Aravinda Rao's appointment as DGP ignoring his seniority, filed the petition on July 7. He urged the Tribunal to set aside the June 30 GO appointing Dinesh Reddy as it was ‘irrational, unconstitutional and violative' of the judgement of the apex court in the Prakash Singh Vs Union of India case.
The apex court in the Prakash Singh case gave a direction that the States should send the names of eligible officers based on merit and seniority to the UPSC for the selection. However the selection committee headed by the Chief Secretary did not send the empanelled names to the UPSC.
Sources said that while the selection committee was required to select three names of DG cadre, it included three more names in excess and the selected officer was outside the senior most three in the panel. While in the latest appointment Dinesh Reddy is the junior most. K. Aravinda Rao, his preecessor, was also outside the three senior most officers in the panel. The government which argued that the officer being considered for DGP should have a minimum two years of service left, however selected Girish Kumar and Aravinda Rao though they had about 10 months of service.
