Hundreds of government officials who have managed to stay put in one district for more than three years will be given transfer orders within the next 24 hours. This includes over 100 police officers in Bangalore City Police Commissionerate.
The Election Commission of India (ECI), while issuing the calendar of events for the election to the Karnataka State Legislative Assembly on Wednesday, stated that election-related officials, including police officials of inspectors and above, who have completed three years in a district should be transferred out.
The commission also said police officers of the rank of sub-inspectors, who have completed three years in a sub-division/Assembly constituency or are posted in their home sub-division/Assembly constituency should also be transferred out of that sub-division/constituency.
Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer Anil Kumar Jha told The Hindu that the commission has already communicated these directions, orally issued by the Chief Election Commissioner during his recent visit to Karnataka, to all the departments concerned, particularly Revenue and Police departments. “We are waiting for the lists of officials and transfer orders will be issued within 24 hours,” Mr. Jha said.
District and division
While the State police headquarters has already received lists from districts and sub-divisions on such officials, the list from Bangalore City is yet to come, a top police officer told The Hindu .
While officials in the lower rung of police hierarchy in the city claimed that the term ‘district’ would mean police division for Bangalore City, which has seven law and order police divisions, two traffic divisions and one crime division, the top officer said, “We will go by revenue districts — Bangalore Urban and Bangalore Rural — and not by police divisions in the Commissionerate.” He also said service in traffic and CCB of the city police too would be considered to calculate total of three year’s of service in Bangalore. “When the ECI talks about ‘district’, it is revenue district and nothing else,” the officer added. “Similarly, though there are two police districts in Kolar district — Kolar and KGF — we’ll consider it one district,” he said. The same analogy would apply to other districts which have police commissionerates — Mysore, Hubli-Dharwad and Mangalore, he added.
Nearly 50 per cent of the 200-odd police officers above the rank of inspectors, including those in the traffic and central crime branch wing of the Bangalore City Police would thus get transferred by virtue of the ECI directive, the official said.
A top official with the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms said the lists of officials are being prepared and would shortly be submitted to the ECI very soon.
