Deven Bharti named first special commissioner of police

Mumbai: IPS officer Deven Bharti was appointed special commissioner of police, Mumbai, by the state government on Wednesday

Mumbai: IPS officer Deven Bharti was appointed special commissioner of police, Mumbai, by the state government on Wednesday. It is for the first time in the history of Mumbai police that such a position has been created.

Fifty-four-year-old Bharti is from the 1994 batch of IPS. He hails from Darbhanga, Bihar. He did his matriculation from Jharkhand and graduated from Delhi School of Economics. He worked in Mumbai as DCP, Zone 7 (Bandra to Andheri) and as DCP, Crime Branch. He was additional commissioner of police, crime branch, and subsequently joint commissioner (Law and order) when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was in power. He was also the inspector general of police (Law and order) in the state and headed the ATS. (HT PHOTO)

Hindustan Times was the first to report about the state government creating the singular post in the rank of additional director general of police, on December 14. Joint commissioners will report to Bharti, while he will report to the commissioner of police (CP), Vivek Phansalkar.

Fifty-four-year-old Bharti is from the 1994 batch of IPS. He hails from Darbhanga, Bihar. He did his matriculation from Jharkhand and graduated from Delhi School of Economics. He worked in Mumbai as DCP, Zone 7 (Bandra to Andheri) and as DCP, Crime Branch. He was additional commissioner of police, crime branch, and subsequently joint commissioner (Law and order) when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was in power. He was also the inspector general of police (Law and order) in the state and headed the ATS.

When the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government assumed office, he was transferred to the state security corporation as additional DG.

Deputy chief minister, Devendra Fadnavis, who heads the home portfolio, created the special position. The Shinde-Fadnavis combine faced much criticism from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress, when they sought to put Bharti in this position in December, 2022. Finally, the home department, citing Delhi’s example, which had a similar portfolio, went ahead with it.

Sources in the police said that the new position is likely to create differences between the commissioner and special commissioner, unless the government clearly defines their roles.

Bharti’s tenure in the services was not without controversy. In November, 2022, the Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena (BSS) and BJP-led government rejected a report by IPS officer Sanjay Pandey who had probed allegations made by criminal Vijay Palande, after the latter had claimed that Bharti had links with the underworld.

During the MVA regime, an FIR was registered against Bharti and other officers for not registering an FIR against BJP leader Hyder Azam’s wife, who had allegedly procured her passport furnishing fake documents. Bharti, was however, not named in the chargesheet, for want of evidence.

Opposition reacts

The appointment has drawn censure from opposition leaders. Chief spokesperson of state Congress, Atul Londhe, said this was home minister Devendra Fadnavis’s attempt to create “his own parallel system”. “He is trying to further his own political ambitions by creating this position, despite the existence of Mumbai police commissioner’s post,” said Londhe.

Londhe also said Fadnavis did not take too kindly to the position of a deputy chief minister in the Eknath Shinde government, after serving as chief minister of the state for five years earlier. Soon after he slipped into his present role, he created two separate war rooms to equalise the status of the chief minister and deputy chief minister. “Now, the work of dividing the police department, which is a disciplined force, has also started,” he said.

“This appointment sends a clear message – the commissioner of police is Shinde’s man, while the special commissioner of police will be is Fadnavis’s man,” Londhe said. “This is how the administration is being destroyed for their political ambitions. If this is their line of thought, create two power centres from top to bottom – such as special collector, special district superintendent of police, special tehsildar, special naib tehsildar, and so on,” he said.

NCP’s chief spokesperson, Mahesh Tapase, reacted saying this warranted a “new post for special Governor of Maharashtra as well”. “Will the Shinde-Fadnavis government be able to create a post for special chief secretary and a special municipal commissioner,” asked Tapase.

Police historian Deepak Rao said, “Places like Delhi, Kolkata and Bengaluru have special commissioners and the system is functioning very well. Now, we will have a police commissioner who will be of DG rank and a special commissioner of additional director general rank and five joint commissioners of IG rank. We will have to see how this works out.” He added that this system is likely to give some relief to the CP.