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A Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud Monday took up the issue of appointments of temporary police chiefs, clubbing three petitions and issuing contempt notices to eight states that will make their submissions before the court on October 21. The apex court, hearing a contempt petition in the matter, issued notices to Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh , Andhra Pradesh , Telangana , Punjab, Bihar, Rajasthan and West Bengal , apart from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). The Indian Express had reported on February 1 about an increasing trend of state governments not appointing regular DGPs despite eligible officers being available. “The CJI has taken up the matter and notices have been issued to all respondents. The matter will be heard again on October 21,” Aditya Samaddar, advocate on record for Vinod Kumar, one of the petitioners, told The Indian Express . Senior lawyer Gopal Sankarnarayan appeared for Vinod Kumar while the case of another petitioner, Naresh Makani, was argued by senior lawyer Madhavi Divan. The respondents were represented by lawyers including Kapil Sibal, Mukul Rohatgi and Huzefa Ahmadi. While issuing the orders, the court dispensed with the personal presence of the respondents, including chief secretaries and DGPs of states apart from senior officials from the MHA and UPSC. It, however, allowed the notices to be served to the standing counsel of the states. The notices come days after the apex court issued notices to seven states and the Union government on a writ petition filed by lawyer Savitri Pandey on the same matter. The court has clubbed all these petitions. The petition filed by Vinod Kumar has argued that the respondents have “willfully and deliberately” disobeyed the SC judgement in the Prakash Singh case which had asked for appointment of regular DGPs for a tenure of two years and given directions to avoid appointment of adhoc police chiefs. The petition has specifically picked the case of UP DGP Prashant Kumar who, it said, was appointed as police chief despite being at serial no. 19 in the seniority list. Uttar Pradesh has had three “acting DGPs” in succession since May 2022. In January, the state got its fourth DGP in Prashant Kumar. After removing then DGP, 1987-batch IPS officer Mukul Goel, for “lack of interest towards work”, the state government appointed 1988 batch IPS officer Devendra Singh Chauhan as acting DG. Following his retirement on March 31, 2022, 1988 batch IPS officer Raj Kumar Vishwakarma was made acting DG. Then on May 31, upon retirement, Vishwakarma was replaced by Vijay Kumar as acting DG. Vijay Kumar had superseded his senior Anand Kumar, and retired on January 31. The Indian Express report had said that while Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, UP and Punjab have had such temporary DGPs for more than a year, Uttarakhand, Odisha and West Bengal had them for months. Odisha has since appointed 1990-batch IPS officer Y B Khurania as the DGP and he took charge in August. Jharkhand, which then had a regular DGP, appointed an acting DGP in July. None
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