It came down to the wire. T.K. Rajendran was posted as Director General of Police and head of the force barely an hour before he was due to retire from service on Friday.
Even as police sources claimed that Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami signed the file recommending Mr. Rajendran’s name to the top post and sent it to Governor Ch. Vidyasagar Rao, there was no sign of his appointment till late on Friday. However, the orders were issued shortly before midnight. He assumed charge at 11.30 p.m., shortly before he was due to retire.
Mr. Rajendran, whose service should have ended on Friday, will now hold office till the end of June 2019 by virtue of Supreme Court guidelines in the Prakash Singh case. Based on the Apex Court ruling, the Tamil Nadu Police Act states that an officer appointed as the head of the force “shall hold the post for a minimum period of two years, irrespective of the date of his/her superannuation.”
Approved by UPSC
He was among four senior IPS officers whose names were approved by the Union Public Service Commission at a meeting convened in New Delhi on Thursday. The DMK strongly criticised the appointment of Mr. Rajendran as DGP/Head of the Force, saying his name figured in the sensational gutkha scam.
The Income Tax department had conducted searches on a gutkha manufacturing company in Chennai last year. Analysis of documents seized in the operation revealed payment of huge bribes to a State Minister, and senior police and other department officials. During the tenure in which the alleged payments were made, Mr. Rajendran was heading the Chennai Police.
The issue rocked the Assembly after The Hindu exposed the scam on Tuesday.
This is the first time that confusion has prevailed over the appointment of a new DGP/head of the force on the day the incumbent DGP attained superannuation. The normal practice is that the officer retiring from service demits office at the close of working hours and a parade is held in his honour.
After former DGPs K. Ramanujam and Ashok Kumar, Mr. Rajendran would be the third senior IPS officer in the State to get the benefit of the Supreme Court order in the Prakash Singh case. The panel of DGPs approved by the UPSC included Archana Ramasundaram (1980 batch), K.P. Maghendran (1984 batch) and Mr. Rajendran.
