Three days after the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) finalised a panel of three IPS officers from Haryana, the state government Sunday appointed senior IPS officer PK Agrawal (1988 batch) as the new state police chief. The other empanneled candidates included Mohammad Akil and R C Mishra, both from the 1989 batch. An official spokesperson said that after consideration of the panel received from the UPSC, Agrawal has been appointed as the Haryana DGP for a period of two years. The state government had sent names of eight IPS officers, including incumbent DGP Manoj Yadava. Inclusion of Yadava’s name in the panel was barely a procedural formality, considering his seniority. UPSC had to pick a panel of three officers out of the remaining seven. Besides the top three, the four others were Shatrujeet Kapoor and Desh Raj Singh (1990 batch), Alok Roy and Sanjeev Kumar Jain (1991 batch). Incumbent DGP Manoj Yadava’s two-year tenure had already ended. The Union Home Ministry on March 2 had extended his tenure till February 20, 2022 or till further orders, whichever is earlier. Yadava, the 1988 batch IPS officer, is left with four years of service before he attains superannuation. Yadava had been posted as state police chief in Haryana since February 21, 2019. Citing personal reasons and career prospects, on June 22 he wrote to Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Rajiv Arora seeking repatriation to his parent cadre of Intelligence Bureau. Yadava’s request was forwarded to state home minister Anil Vij, who “accepted” it and asked the home department to finalise the process of his replacement by sending a panel of suitable officers to UPSC. According to the landmark directions of the Supreme Court in former Uttar Pradesh DGP Prakash Singh’s case in 2006, a state police chief is selected by the state government from among the three senior-most officers of the police department who have been empanelled for promotion to the rank of DGP on the basis of their length of service, good record and range of experience for heading the police force.
