Mumbai Police to get new commissioner as Phansalkar retires soon

According to officials, though Date is considered in high regard by the CM, the Central government may not want to let him go as NIA is currently involved in sensitive probes like interrogation of Tahawwur Rana and the Pahalgam attack.

The next in line are 1992-batch officers Retesh Kumar, Amitabh Gupta, and the current Anti-Corruption Bureau chief Sanjeev Singhal.

Archana Tyagi, from the 1993 batch, is also considered to be a dark horse for the post considering that so far no woman has headed the Mumbai Police.

Deven Bharti, a 1994-batch officer, who is an Additional Director General-rank officer, could also be made the commissioner if the post, that is currently a Director General-rank post, is downgraded to ADG rank.

Officials said that in case no one is appointed in the next two days, the government is likely to hand over additional charge of the post to Bharti, who is currently the special commissioner.

Phansalkar took charge as the Mumbai Police chief on June 30, 2022 around the same time Uddhav Thackeray resigned as CM and the Mahayuti government came to power.

Prior to that, the Mumbai Police faced a turbulent period after Param Bir Singh was shunted out as commissioner in 2021 and Hemant Nagrale was appointed in his place for less than a year and Sanjay Pandey was appointed as commissioner for four months by the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government before his retirement on June 30, 2022 following which Phansalkar took charge.