Punjab govt finally sends panel of 14 IPS to UPSC for appointment of full-time DGP

Despite trying its best to scuttle the move to appoint a regular DGP for about four years, the Punjab govt finally buckled under legal pressure and sent a panel of 14 top-ranking IPS officers to the UPSC on Monday for appointing a full-time DGP.

The Punjab govt’s move comes after the Supreme Court slamming several states, including Punjab, for continuing with “acting” DGPs and directing the UPSC to initiate the appointment process and take punitive action against the erring states.

Acting on its order, the UPSC asked the state govt on Feb 18 to send its proposal within 10 days and later issued a reminder after the state failed to do so. The Bhagwant Mann govt then took shelter of the Punjab Police (Amendment) Bill, 2023, but the Supreme Court rejected its plea on March 12 to rely on that Bill, which is reported to be lying for the President’s approval.

The current dispensation had appointed Gaurav Yadav (IPS:1992:PB) in July 2022 as an acting DGP to replace Viresh Kumar Bhawra (IPS:1987:PB), who was a regular DGP, by superseding several officers senior to him.

The UPSC earlier accepted the Punjab govt’s request to replace him with the state Home Secretary in the empanelment committee in which the DGP and Chief Secretary of the concerned state are members.

The UPSC will now shortlist three officers and forward the panel to the Punjab govt to choose one of them as the regular DGP.  The selected officer will get a minimum tenure of two years, irrespective of the date of retirement.

The panel of the 14 IPS officers sent by the state govt to the UPSC for shortlisting three names also includes Punjab’s acting DGP Gaurav Yadav and he is considered among the top contenders.

Besides Yadav, the officers whose names have been included in the state govt’s proposal from the 1992-batch IPS officers are Special DGP (Punjab Police Housing Corporation) Sharad Satya Chauhan, Special DGP (Anti-Narcotics Task Force) Kuldeep Singh, and Harpreet Singh Sidhu (awaiting posting).

Among the 1993-batch IPS officers in the panel are Special DGP (Community Affairs division and Women Affairs) Gurpreet Kaur Deo, Special DGP (Punjab State Power Corporation Ltd) Jitendra Kumar Jain, and Special DGP (Railway) Shashi Prabha Dwivedi.

Among the 1994-batch officers included in the panel are Special DGP (Headquarters) Sudhanshi Shekhar Srivastava, Special DGP-cum-Chief Director (Vigilance Bureau) Praveen Kumar Sinha, Special DGP (Traffic and Road Safety) Aamardeep Singh Rai, Special DGP (Cyber Crime) Voruvuru Neeraja, Special DGP-cum-Director of the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Punjab Police Academy (MRSPPA) Anita Punj, Special DGP (Human Rights) Naresh Kumar, and Special DGP (Technical Support Services) Ram Singh.