Mumbai, Jan 5 (PTI) Senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Deven Bharti took charge as the special commissioner of Mumbai Police on Thursday, a day after the Maharashtra Home Department issued the appointment order for the newly created post.
Responding to criticism by opposition Congress and Nationalist Congress Party that he was trying to create “parallel administration” by installing Bharti as special CP, deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said he would be reporting to the commissioner of police (CP).
There was no Additional Director General-rank (ADG) official in Mumbai and the special CP will fill up that gap, said the BJP leader who handles the Home portfolio in the Eknath Shinde government.
IPS officer Vivek Phansalkar is currently the Mumbai CP.
A police official on Thursday said Bharti reached the city police headquarters in south Mumbai in the morning and took charge of his new responsibility after meeting Phansalkar and other top officials.
Bharti, a 1994-batch IPS officer, is considered to be close to Fadnavis.
He was joint CP (law and order) when Fadnavis was Maharashtra chief minister from 2014 to 2019.
He was shunted out when the Maha Vikas Aghadi government came to power in 2019 and made joint managing director of Maharashtra State Security Corporation.
Responding to the criticism by opposition parties, Fadnavis told reporters that earlier the post of Mumbai police commissioner was of ADG rank.
When he was chief minister, he raised it to the Director General rank considering Mumbai’s expanse, but no new ADG-rank post was created then, he said.
Joint commissioners of police who are equivalent to Inspector General report to ADG, and ADG level officer reports to a DG, Fadnavis said.
“So this is an ADG-level position. Though the designation is special CP, the rank is subordinate to Mumbai CP. He (Bharti) will report to the Mumbai CP, and all joint CP officers will report to special CP,” he added. PTI ZA SPK NR GK KRK KRK
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