At least four senior IPS officers in the rank of Director-General of Police now stand a chance of heading the Tamil Nadu police, thanks to the Supreme Court order on Wednesday which clarified that officers with a minimum residual service of at least six months would be eligible for empanelment to the top post.
The apex court modified an earlier order in which it had ruled that as far as practicable the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) should consider officers with a clear two years service left for empanelment as DGP.
The norm of having a minimum of two year residual service before retirement dashed the hopes of eight DGP rank officers in the State who are all due for superannuation in less than two years.
With the incumbent DGP T.K. Rajendran due to retire on June 30, 2019, and uncertainty over the possibility of the serving DGPs in the State being eligible to head the force, the Tamil Nadu government promoted the 1987-batch of IPS officers on Sunday, barely hours ahead of the announcement of the poll schedule for the Lok Sabha and Assembly byelections.
Wednesday’s order has revived the chances of J.K. Tripathy, M.S. Jaffar Sait, Srilakshmi Prasad and Asutosh Shukla who will precede M.K. Jha in the order of seniority for inclusion in the panel. The officers who have less than six months service left and will retire this year are S.R. Jangid and C.K. Gandhi Rajan. Two other DGPs Ashish Bengra and Ramesh Kudawla will retire in June this year along with Mr. Rajendran.
On the fixed tenure of the officers appointed by a State as the DGP/head of police force, the Supreme Court said that “the appointment of a Director General of Police in a State should be purely on the basis of merit and to insulate the said office from all kinds of influences and pressures, once appointed the incumbent should get a minimum tenure of two years of service irrespective of his date of superannuation”.
According to a senior police officer, the State government has to recommend to the UPSC a panel of three or five officers three months before the retirement of the incumbent DGP.
