A first in AAP’s 4 years: Govt sends panel to UPSC to pick full-time DGP

The panel also includes three 1993-batch IPS officers including Gurpreet Kaur Deo Special DGP, community affairs & women affairs; Shashi Prabha Dwivedi, Special DGP, railways; and Jitendra Kumar Jain, special DGP, Punjab state power corporation Limited.

Those from the 1994 batch include Sudhanshu Shekhar Srivastava, Special DGP, headquarters; Praveen Kumar Sinha, who was on Monday appointed as OSD, law and order and will take over as special DGP, law and order on May; Amardeep Singh Rai, Special DGP, traffic & road safety; Dr Naresh Kumar, Special DGP, human rights; Anita Punj, Special DGP-cum-director, Maharaja Ranjit Singh Punjab Police Academy; and Voruvuru Neeraja, Special DGP, Cyber Crime; and Ram Singh, Special DGP-cum-Commandant General, Punjab Home Guards, and director, Civil Defence.

The name of 1989-batch officer DGP Parag Jain has not been included as he is learnt to have written to the government that he was not interested in the post. He is the seniormost IPS officer and heads the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

The move send the panel comes two months after the Supreme Court directed the UPSC to take proactive measures against states delaying the appointment of full-time DGPs. The apex court, expressing strong disapproval of the “acting DGP” culture prevalent in several states, had noted that it undermines the stability and independence of police leadership as envisioned in the 2006 Prakash Singh judgment. The court empowered the UPSC to directly remind states of impending vacancies and, in cases of persistent delays, file applications in the Prakash Singh case for accountability, including contempt actions against errant governments.

The last time Punjab appointed a DGP through a panel cleared by the UPSC was in January 2022 when the then Congress government, headed by Charanjit Singh Channi, had picked VK Bhawra for the post. Bhawra’s was among the heads that rolled in the aftermath of the killing of Punjabi singer Shubhdeep Singh aka Sidhu Moosewala in May 2022. The Bhagwant Mann dispensation had in June 2022 asked Bhawra to proceed on leave and appointed Yadav as the officiating DGP. Since then, Punjab had avoided sending a panel to the UPSC.

Earlier, Punjab Vidhan Sabha had passed the Punjab Police (Amendment) Bill, 2023, seeking to circumvent UPSC and create a seven-member committee (chaired by a retired High Court judge) to prepare a panel of three officers and appoint a DGP with a three-year tenure. The Bill was sent to the Governor who referred it to the President for assent. President Droupadi Murmu had returned the Bill without assent.