Supreme Court Notice Acting DGP: The Supreme Court of India has issued notices to Punjab and seven other states of India over the appointment of 'acting' DGP and not a regular one. Supreme Court issued notices on September 30, 2024, on a petition seeking the appointment of regular chiefs of police in these states. The states include- Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, West Bengal, Punjab, and Jharkhand. All these states, except Odisha, currently have temporary Police Chiefs designated as acting Director General of Police (DGP).
The petition was filed after a report outlined that states appointed acting DGPs despite the fact officers are available to serve as regular DGPs is a violation of the Supreme Court guidelines in the 2006 -Prakash Singh case. Notably, states like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, UP, and Punjab have had such temporary DGPs for more than a year, on the other hand- Uttarakhand, Odisha, and West Bengal had them for months. Odisha now has appointed a regular DGP. Odisha's current DGP is a 1990-batch IPS officer Y B Khurania and he took charge in August. Jharkhand, which then had a regular DGP, appointed an acting DGP in July.
With the Supreme Court issuing notices to states, Punjab will now have to send a panel of officers to the apex body so that a regular DGP can be appointed in the state. If the Punjab government decides to send a panel of names of officers to the Ministry of Home Affairs for the appointment of Regular DGP, below are a few names-
1988-batch IPS Officer Prabodh Kumar
1989-batch IPS Officer Sanjeev Kalra
1989-batch IPS Officer Parag Jain
1992-batch IPS Officer Dr. Sharad Satya Chauhan
1992-batch IPS Officer Harpreet Singh Sidhu
1992-batch IPS Officer Gaurav Yadav
1992-batch IPS Officer Kuldeep Singh
1992-batch IPS Officer Ms. Gurpreet Kaur Deo
1993-batch IPS Officer Varinder Kumar
1993-batch IPS Officer Ishwar Singh
1993-batch IPS Officer Dr. Jitendra Kumar Jain
1993-batch IPS Officer Satish Kumar Asthana
1993-batch IPS Officer Ms. Shashi Prabha Dwivedi
1993-batch IPS Officer Rajendra Namdeo Dhoke
1993-batch IPS Officer Arpit Shukla
For the unversed, Supreme Court's guidelines reportedly direct that no temporary or ad hoc appointments of police chiefs must be made, barring exceptional circumstances. Furthermore, UPSC guidelines say states must send a list of eligible officers, with at least three senior-most officers, to the Commission six months before the retirement of the incumbent DGP. It is observed that states are appointing acting DGPs to a DG Rank officer in the state holding some other responsibility.