Dinkar Gupta to continue as Punjab Police chief, HC sets aside CAT order

State advocate general Atul Nanda says that the Punjab and Haryana high court has allowed their petitions and a detailed order is awaited

The Punjab and Haryana high court on Friday allowed the petitions of the state government and the director general of police (DGP), Dinkar Gupta, challenging the central administrative tribunal (CAT) order that set aside his appointment as the Punjab Police chief.

A 1987-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, Dinkar Gupta, was appointed as the state police chief by chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh on February 7, 2019. He superseded five officers to be named the state police chief. (HT file photo)

A 1987-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, Gupta superseded five officers to be named the state police chief on February 7, 2019. IPS officers Mohammad Mustafa and Siddharth Chattopadhyaya challenged Gupta’s appointment, saying they were ignored despite being senior and having an outstanding service record. The other officers superseded were Hardeep Dhillon, Jasminder Singh and Samant Goel.

“Our petitions have been allowed by the high court. A detailed order is awaited,” Punjab advocate general, Atul Nanda said.

In January, the CAT quashed Gupta’s appointment, observing that the procedure adopted by the empanelment committee and Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) for preparing the panel violated the Supreme Court judgment in the Prakash Singh case.

In high court, the state government had allayed fears of mala fide and defended the criterion adopted by the state and the UPSC.

The UPSC submitted that all eligible officers are considered and state governments are mandatorily asked to forward the list of eligible officers and their documents. The UPSC takes into account the range of experience, service record and length of service while making recommendations, it had told court.

Mustafa and Chattopadhyaya submitted that detailed information was not available for assessing the panel sent by Punjab on the range of experience and that the number of officers placed in the panel of eligible officers was in violation of department of personnel and training guidelines.

Chattopadhyaya had even raised questions over the preparation of assessment sheets of the officers, which were considered by the UPSC before making the recommendation to the state.

After hearing all parties, the high court bench of justice Jaswant Singh and justice Sant Parkash reserved the order on September 9.