The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the acting Director General of Police (DGP) of Jammu and Kashmir Dilbag Singh to continue till the Union Public Services Commission (UPSC) recommends the name of the next police chief within the next five weeks.
With the Court having restrained all states from appointing an Acting DGP as part of its police reforms order, the state of Jammu and Kashmir had approached Court seeking an exemption to appoint Dilbag Singh as Acting DGP as the state faced a serious law and order situation in the face of militancy and constant terror attacks. On September 6, the incumbent DGP SP Vaid was removed which led to this development.
The bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra heard Attorney General K K Venugopal on behalf of the Centre and asked UPSC how much time it will require to send a panel of names for appointment as the DGP of J&K. The UPSC counsel told the Court that the proposal sent by the state is not complete and a reminder about the same was sent to the state.
The Court directed J&K government to supply all necessary information and documents within a week and asked UPSC to finalize the appointment in four weeks thereafter. However, opposition against the state’s application came from advocate Prashant Bhushan who has religiously defended the order of the Court on police reforms. He questioned the removal of Vaid in violation of the established procedure and wondered why the next senior most officer in the state was not made the police chief.
He moved a contempt petition against the state government but the Court did not wish to go into that aspect. A-G Venugopal pointed out that neither the person aggrieved by the removal nor the next senior most officers aggrieved by the interim appointment have approached the Court. Then why is Bhushan interested to rake up the issue when the decision is in the interest of preserving law and order in the state, A-G submitted. The matter will now come up before Court in November.
UPSC Permission
The J&K government had earlier moved the apex court seeking modification of its order by which prior permission of the UPSC was required for appointing a police officer from among three short-listed candidates. The apex court had on September 11 refused to interfere with the decision of the state government.
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