In a major setback to Capt Amarinder Singh-led Punjab Government, the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) on Friday set aside the appointment of senor IPS officer Dinkar Gupta as the state Director-General of Police (DGP).
He was virtually hand-picked by Capt Amarinder almost a year back after the retirement of his predecessor Suresh Arora from among the panel of three officers, sent by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) as per the new rules set by the Supreme Court.
The other two officers of the panel include two others 1987-batch IPS officers — MK Tiwari and VK Bhawra.
1987-batch officer Gupta lost the legal battle to his seniors 1985-batch Mohd Mustafa and 1986-batch Siddarth Chattopadhyaya in cop versus cop case. Both Mustafa and Chattopadhyaya are also the DGPs.
Appointed DGP on February 7, 2019, for at least two years fixed tenure, Gupta had superseded his five senior officers. Besides Mustafa and Chattopadhyaya, Gupta also superseded the 1984-batch IPS officer Samant Kumar Goel, 1985-batch Hardeep Singh Dhillon, and 1986-batch Jasminder Singh.
Unhappy, Mustafa and Chattopadhyaya challenged the appointment.
Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh was quick to respond to the verdict. Soon after the pronouncement of the judgment by the CAT Bench, the Chief Minister tweeted that Dinkar Gupta would continue to hold the post.
The State Government, by the evening, made clear its intent to challenge the orders before the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
“The Government has decided that it will challenge the CAT order quashing Dinkar Gupta’s appointment as the Director General of Police in the High Court,” a senior government official told The Pioneer.
Gupta would become the second officer virtually retained by the State even after the initial passing of adverse judicial orders. Retired IAS officer Suresh Kumar is currently continuing as the Chief Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister. His appointment too was quashed by a Single bench of the High Court.
But a Division Bench later stayed the operation of the order setting aside his appointment as the Chief Principal Secretary to Chief Minister.
Setting aside Gupta’s appointment as Punjab DGP, CAT has directed the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) and the Empanelment Committee to prepare a panel of three senior-most officers “strictly in accordance with” the Supreme Court judgment and by “not taking into account, any factors other than those mentioned by the Supreme Court” within four weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of the judgment.
As per the Supreme Court directives, the state DGP “shall be selected by the State Government from amongst the three senior-most officers of the Department who have been empanelled for promotion to that rank by the Union Public Service Commission on the basis of their length of service, very good record and range of experience for heading the police force. And, once he has been selected for the job, he should have a minimum tenure of at least two years irrespective of his date of superannuation”.
CAT Bench of Justice L Narasimha Reddy, and Mohd Jamshed, in its order, observed that that “entire selection process and consequential appointment of Dinkar Gupta is contrary to the judgment of Supreme Court in Prakash Singh’s case”.
The Bench also observed, “It is clear that the selection process, which was galvanized, has been virtually ignored and defeated with impunity. A device procedure was evolved to choose the selection criteria in such a way that the desired candidates are selected. This exactly was the malady, which the Supreme Court wanted to eradicate.”
It maintained that the “procedure adopted the UPSC and the Empanelment Committee for preparation of panel for appointment to the post of DGP, Punjab, is patently opposed to, and is violative of the one stipulated by the Supreme Court, apart from being otherwise illegal and arbitrary”.
The Bench was added that the issue can be examined from another angle. “The easiest way for a State Government to ensure that an officer of its choice and who is pliable as DGP, would be to continuously post him in any specific activity, howsoever inconsequential it may be, and then to make an effort to accord primacy to such activity in the process of selection.”
“There cannot be a better instance of arbitrariness and favouritism, than this. The selection process would stand reduced to a mockery. Any aspiring officer would make endeavour in ensuring that he remains in the good books of administration and he is posted continuously in a particular activity,” the Bench added.
Notably, Gupta’s appointment as DGP came after the UPSC, on February 4, 2019, had prepared a three-member panel and recommended the names to the Punjab Government to appoint one of them as the next state police chief. Before that, a list of three IPS officers surfaced in which Gupta’s names was included along with that of Goel and Mustafa.
It was believed that the names of officers in the previous list were discussed during the UPSC meeting, which was attended by the then DGP Suresh Arora and the Chief Secretary Karan Avtar Singh, but the final list that was prepared included the names of all 1987-batch IPS officers.
A decorated officer, Gupta’s appointment at the top post has ruffled many feathers within the Police Department, with his senior Mustafa coming out in public to express his displeasure. Unhappy for being “ignored”, Mustafa has maintained that he would knock the door of the Apex Court to seek “justice”.
Mustafa, who was considered to be a strong contender for the DGP post, is the husband of Punjab Cabinet Minister Razia Sultana. Mustafa also enjoys close proximity with the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder.
Counsel for Mustafa, DS Patwalia, argued that the UPSC, the Department of Home Affairs, Punjab, and Empanelment Committee had completely deviated from the factors required for selection such as length of service, very good record and range of experience for heading the police force.
He argued that “even if it is to be presumed that the performance of the officers in the core policing activities is relevant, there was no basis for choosing only 5, out of 20”. It was pleaded that five areas were chosen only to push up Dinkar Gupta, who was otherwise far below.
The same ground was adopted by the counsel for Siddarth Chattopadhyaya.
The UPSC and Empanelment Committee contended that five core policing areas — intelligence, law and order, administration, investigation, and security, were taken into account, and that they are inconformity with the draft guidelines issued by the UPSC in 2009.