The controversy over the appointment of a new police chief in Bengal has received a fresh bout of legal complication with the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) moving the Delhi High Court on Tuesday, challenging a Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) order that directed the commission to complete the DGP selection process in Bengal by Jan 29. The CAT’s direction had come on a petition filed by IPS officer Rajesh Kumar (IPS: 1990:WB).
The CAT had directed the Bengal govt to submit a fresh list of IPS officers to the UPSC by January 23 for shortlisting three names for appointing a new chief of the state police. The state govt acted with alacrity and sent the revised list to the UPSC within hours of the tribunal’s order. Sources in the state home department confirmed it. But the UPSC, instead of following the CAT’s orders, rushed to the High Court soon after receiving the panel of names sent to it by the Bengal govt as per the CAT’s directions.
The tribunal had also directed the UPSC to convene the empanelment committee meeting by January 28, prepare the panel, and forward it to the state by January 29, thus clearing the decks for the appointment of a new DGP by Jan 31—the day acting DGP Rajeev Kumar (IPS:1989:WB) retires. The Legend Officer had reported that the state was poised to have a new DGP on February 1. But this new implication has changed the course of action altogether.
The Bengal’s DGP post fell vacant more than two years back, on December 28, 2023, and since then, IPS officer Rajeev Kumar has been officiating as an acting DGP. The Bengal govt dilly-dallied in initiating the process for appointment of a regular DGP as per the Supreme Court’s guidelines in the Prakash Singh case of 2006. It resulted in an inordinate delay on the part of the Bengal govt in submitting the DGP empanelment proposal to the UPSC. It was exactly due to this reason that the UPSC recently returned its proposal and directed the state govt to the Supreme Court for further instruction.
The UPSC said that the state government forwarded its proposal only in July 2025, after the lapse of more than one and a half years after the vacancy occurred in Dec 2023.
However, the Bengal govt submitted its panel in July 2025 with a list of 10 IPS officers, including acting DGP Rajeev Kumar. Interestingly, the UPSC also shortlisted three candidates, but the process was stalled after IPS officer Rajesh Kumar, currently serving as principal secretary in the department of mass education and library sciences, challenged the selection.
It was Kumar who approached the tribunal seeking to include his name in the UPSC’s panel of three senior-most IPS officers for appointment to the DGP post that paved the way for submission of a fresh list by the Bengal govt.
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