One of the persistent criticisms of the incumbent state government is its inability to appoint a permanent Director General of Police. Every time the state’s law and order is thrown into chaos, rival political parties bring the issue up.
So why has the state been unable to appoint a full time DGP, despite chief minister, Yogi Adityanath’s repeated commitment to a crime free state.
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Uttar Pradesh’s last full time DGP was in Mukul Goel who on May 2022 was shifted out because of a lack of interest in duties. The DG Intelligence was then brought in to officiate on the post.
The former rules about the appointment of state DGP required that the state send to the Centre names of such IPS officers who had completed 30 years in service and had a remaining service tenure of six months or more. When Goel was eased out, 42 officers fit in to the required condition.
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New rules formulated by the state government in November required the setting up of a committee headed by a retired judge of a High Court to finalise a name for the post in consultation with chief secretary, a nominee of the Union Public Service Commission, the additional chief secretary (home) and a retired DGP. These new rules are similar to the ones formulated by the Aam Aadmi Party government in Punjab to bypass the need to go through the centre to make appointments to the top police post in the state.
With this change in rules it was assumed that the current acting DGP, Prashant Kumar would get a permanent posting for two years. This is owing to both- Kumar’s work record and also his proximity to the state government. However, Kumar became ineligible on December 1 as he had less than six months of service remaining that day onwards.
This means the state is once again without an end in sight to the DGP limbo despite having new rules which gave the state, and not the centre the authority over the state’s top cop.
One view is that if the state were to appoint Kumar it would have still had to turn to the Centre for extending his tenure beyond the six months he had left in service. This would then give the Centre control over the post. Hence to nix that possibility the state wants to appoint an officer who has two years of service left as that is the proposed tenure of the DGP.
