Punjab Chief Secretary KAP Sinha, who had kicked off a row after putting on hold promotions of eight senior IPS officers to the rank of DGPs recently, has given a go-ahead to the promotion of two 1995-batch IAS officers as Additional Chief Secretaries. The CS has also asked the personnel department to fix a meeting for the promotion of the two 1995-batch IAS officers – Jaspreet Talwar and Dilip Kumar— who have completed 30 years of service.
But this move has not gone down well with IPS officers who are now alleging partiality, saying it shows “the double standards” of the IAS lobby.
Sinha refutes the allegations, saying not to correlate the promotion of IAS officers with the promotion of IPS officers. According to him, the IAS officers were being promoted against the existing vacancies in the Punjab cadre, while promotions of IPS officers were put on hold due to contradictions in rules. “Once I get replies, I will certainly promote them (IPS officers),” he added.
After the latest promotions, Punjab now has 11 officers at the rank of Chief Secretary and Additional Chief Secretary. Currently, apart from KAP Sinha, Anirudh Tiwari (1990 batch), Sarvjit Singh, and Raji P Srivastava (1992 batch) are serving as Special Chief Secretaries. Meanwhile, Anurag Verma and K Siva Prasad (1993 batch), along with Vikas Pratap, Alok Shekhar, Dhirendra Kumar Tiwari, JM Balamurugan, and Tejveer Singh (1994 batch), are serving as Additional Chief Secretaries.
Additionally, three officers of the same rank—Anurag Aggarwal, Seema Jain, and Rakesh Kumar—are currently on central deputation.
Also Read: Punjab CS puts on hold promotion of 8 senior IPS officers
