Kerala DGP Anil Kant is set to retire from the service on June 30 and the state government has already started searching for his successor. The police headquarters has prepared a list of senior officers who are interested in becoming DGP, as per the home department instructions.
The state government has prepared a list of eligible officers having experience of 30 years of service. They are;
- Nitin Aggarwal (IPS:1989:KL)
- K Padmakumar (IPS:1989:KL)
- Shaikh Darvesh Sahib (IPS:1990:KL)
- Harinath Mishra (IPS:1990:KL)
- Ravada Chandrasekhar (IPS:1990:KL)
- Sanjeeb Kumar Patjoshi (IPS:1991:KL)
- TK Vinod Kumar (IPS:1992:KL)
- Yogesh Gupta (IPS:1993:KL)
A committee consisting of UPSC Chairman, Union Home Secretary, Chief of one of the Central Forces, Chief Secretary of state and DGP will prepare a three-member final panel from this and forward it for appointment. From this, the state government should appoint the police chief.
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The frontrunner for the posts are; K Padmakumar, ADGP of Police Headquarters, Shaikh Darvesh Sahib, ADGP, Crime Branch, and TK Vinod Kumar, ADGP, intelligence. Padmakumar has a tenure till April, 2025, Shaikh Darvesh till July 2024 and Vinod Kumar will remain in office till August 2025. Although Harinath Mishra in Intelligence Bureau has service till July 2025 and Ravada Chandrasekhar till July 2026, both of them informed the government last time not to consider them for the DGP post.
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There are five DGP rank officers in the Kerala cadre and they are all set to retire in the coming months. B Sandhya (IPS:1988:KL) and S Anandkrishnan (IPS:1989:KL) will retire in May, Anil Kant (IPS:1988:KL) in June, and Tomin Thachankary (IPS:1987:KL) in July. Arunkumar Sinha (IPS:1987:KL), the senior most in the Kerala cadre and head of the SPG in charge of the Prime Minister’s security, will retire in May.
