The state’s home department has restored top police officers’ discretionary powers to suspend officers of and below the rank of police inspector.
The state’s home department has restored top police officers’ discretionary powers to suspend officers of and below the rank of police inspector.
Confirming the home department’s decision, police commissioner Sanjeev Dayal said, “This was a long-pending need felt by all police commissioners.”
A senior police officer explained that police commissioners had been kept deprived of the authority to suspend low-ranking officials for long.
This was a result of the Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal’s (MAT) interpretation of the appeal and discipline rules.
“The rules have strangely left out the commissioners, while assigning the rights to suspend officers of and below the rank of police inspector to the superintendent of police, the range inspector generals and the deputy inspector generals.
Someone appealed in the MAT about two years ago and quoted the same instance. MAT ruled that if the rules do not specify that commissioners have the authority to suspend, so be it. But this was unacceptable to us, and so we moved for an amendment,” said an officer.
A notice (a copy of which is with DNA) issued by BR Wadhave, joint secretary of Maharashtra, includes a list of authorities that can place police officers of and below the rank of police inspectors under suspension.
The list includes commissioners of police, including railway commissioners, apart from the additional directors general of police (administration), IGs and DIGs.
The notice, however, reads: “If the order of suspension is issued by an authority lower in rank than the appointing authority, such authority will forthwith report to the appointing authority the circumstances in which the order of suspension was made.”
“In the wake of the rise in the number of cases of indiscipline within the department, this is certainly a welcome change. The fear of one’s senior may not always work but the lack of it can certainly encourage indiscipline at times,” added the officer.
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