Order in two matters pertaining to appointment of Javeed Ahmed, as the new DGP and Justice (Retired) S Rafat Alam as Chairman of State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) were reserved by the High Court after hearing the arguments on Thursday.
Social activist Nutan Thakur, the lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court reserved its order against the two appointments. Advocate general Vijay Bahadur Singh objected to the maintainability of the petition before the bench of Justice S N Shukla and Justice Ashok Pal Singh, while Thakur’s counsel Asok Pande opposed it through case laws. The order shall be delivered on 11 January.
On Wednesday, Bench of Justice A P Sahi and Justice A R Masudi said that the claims made in this petition clearly related to the appointment of DGP, which was a service matter
The petition says that Ahmad was appointed superceeding 13 IPS officers from UP cadre senior to him. Of these eight are working in the UP government and are available for the government’s consideration. Besdies, four IPS officers are on Central deputations.
It was contended that this was against a Supreme Court ruling in Prakash Singh vs Union of India, which said that the DGP shall be selected from amongst the three senior-most officers of the department empanelled for promotion by the UPSC on the basis of their length of service, good record and range of experience for heading the police force. Thakur said that whenever there is any deviation from the law of the land, it gives a bad signal and sets bad precedence, giving an inkling of ‘quid pro quo’, hence Ahmad was not legally empowered to hold this position.
Meanwhile lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court also reserved its order against appointment of SHRC chairman Justice (retd) S Rafat Alam. Thakur claimed that the bench of Justice A P Sahi and Justice AR Masudi gave this order after hearing Advocate General Vijay Bahadur Singh who objected by saying that Chairman of SHRC was not an employment while Thakur’s counsel Asok Pande opposed it.
On Wednesdayevening, Nutan Thakur had claimed that Governor Ram Naik has taken cognizance of her petition filed in connection with Alam. Naik reportedly directed Principal Secretary, Home to take legally appropriate action. Governor’s cognizance of the petition becomes important because he has not asked to oppose the petition but to act as per law.