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Punjab govt’s panel: 3 IPS officers recommended for Chandigarh SSP’s post
A day after governor and Chandigarh administrator Banwarilal Purohit wrote back to chief minister Bhagwant Mann that the Punjab government was informed well in advance about the repatriation of Union Territory senior superintendent of police Kuldeep Singh Chahal to his parent cadre following allegations of “misconduct”, the state government forwarded a panel of names of three IPS officers for appointment as Chandigarh SSP.
A day after governor and Chandigarh administrator Banwarilal Purohit wrote back to chief minister Bhagwant Mann that the Punjab government was informed well in advance about the repatriation of Union Territory senior superintendent of police Kuldeep Singh Chahal to his parent cadre following allegations of “misconduct”, the state government forwarded a panel of names of three IPS officers for appointment as Chandigarh SSP.
The three IPS officers shortlisted by the Punjab government for the coveted post are Akhil Chaudhary, Sandeep Kumar Garg and Bhagirath Singh Meena. Chaudhary and Garg are 2012-batch officers, while Meena is an officer of the 2013 batch.
Chaudhary is posted as assistant inspector general (AIG), personnel, law and order and public grievances, while Garg is the Mohali SSP and Meena is the Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar district police chief. Their names have been forwarded to the UT administration, which sends them to the Union home ministry for approval.
The administration had on Monday repatriated Chahal to Punjab, his parent cadre, even as he had 10 months left of his three-year tenure. His charge was given to SSP (Traffic) Manisha Chaudhary, a Haryana-cadre IPS officer.
The decision was labelled as being “anti-Punjab” by political leaders of the state. Mann shot off a letter on Tuesday and objected to the UT administration’s decision to hand over the charge to Chaudhary. In his two-page reply, Purohit accused Mann of shooting off a letter on Chahal’s repatriation and raising the “unnecessary issue of Punjab vs Haryana” without ascertaining facts.
Attributing the police officer’s premature repatriation to serious inputs regarding his “misconduct”, the governor wrote that the Punjab government was informed about the decision to repatriate Chahal along with the request to send a panel of IPS officers for appointing his successor.
UT to send panel to MHA
As per the practice, UT administration would send the panel, suggested by Punjab to Ministry of home affairs, who in turn would select one officer for inter-state cadre. There have been instances when the UT administration recommended the name of the officer to the MHA but it was not selected for the job.
The Punjab government had sent a panel of three names for the post, including Chahal, Patil Ketan Baliram (AIG, counter intelligence, Amritsar) and Vivek Sheel Soni (SSP, Ludhiana rural). The UT administration had recommended Soni’s name to the MHA but MHA notified Chahal as the new SSP.
