Lucknow: Senior IPS officer Prashant Kumar was appointed the acting Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police (DGP) on Wednesday, the fourth such appointment in the last 20 months.
As he is retiring in May 2025, Kumar will have an over one-year tenure as the state’s top cop.
Kumar who was hitherto serving as special DG (law and order) and DG (economic offences wing), will also serve as the acting DGP till the appointment of a permanent DGP, said an order issued Wednesday by Principal secretary (home) Sanjay Prasad.
This elevation is being seen in bureaucratic circles as the Yogi Adityanath government’s way of appointing the top police officer of his choice by keeping the Centre out of the process.
According to the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) guidelines, a state government has to send a list of probable names to the Commission which will then send three recommendations from which it can pick its choice as the DGP.
In May 2022, the Yogi government had shunted Uttar DGP Mukul Goel on the grounds of “disregard of government duty,” “lack of interest in departmental work” and “indolence”. It went on to make D. S. Chauhan, R. K .Vishwakarma, Vijaya Kumar, and, now, Prashant Kumar as the acting DGP.
On Wednesday, the 1990-batch IPS officer surpassed 13 officers senior to him in the hierarchy in his latest appointment.
According to the UP IPS gradation list, they are Mukul Goel, Anand Kumar, Safi Ahsan Rizvi, Ashish Gupta, Aditya Mishra, P.V. Rama Shastri, Sandeep Salunke, Daljit Singh Chawdhary, Renuka Mishra, B.K. Maurya, S.N. Sabat, Avinash Chandra, S.M. Tarade, Monmohan Bashal, Tanuja Srivastava and Subhash Chandra.
Since Mukul Goel, Anand Kumar and Subhash Chandra are set to retire between February 2024 and April 2024, they cannot be considered for the post of DGP.
While Rizvi, Aditya Mishra, Rama Shastri and Chawdhary are on central deputation, the other officers are serving on various posts in Uttar Pradesh. Officers on central deputation can be repatriated to the state in case the state government requests the Centre and the latter relieves them. However, this has not happened in the present case.
The last time an officer superseded several officers of the same-rank was in 2016 when the then chief minister Akhilesh Yadav appointed Javeed Ahmad as the DGP. Ahmad had superseded at least 15 IPS officers of the same rank back then.
Also Read: UP govt appoints 3rd acting DGP in row despite contempt plea in SC. ‘Bad precedent’, say ex-DGPs
State Vs UPSC
After 1987-batch IPS officer Mukul Goel was removed from the DGP post, the UP government appointed D.S. Chauhan as the DGP on 12 May, 2022.
Upon Chauhan’s retirement on 31 March 2023, R.K. Vishwakarma was made the acting DGP but he was able to serve for only two months. Vijaya Kumar then came in on 31 May, 2023. And now with Vijaya Kumar retiring Wednesday, the UP government appointed Prashant Kumar as the fourth acting DGP on the same day.
Sources in the Uttar Pradesh government confirmed that a list of probable officers was not sent to the UPSC for consideration.
According to the revised UPSC guidelines, an officer being considered for selection needs to have completed 25 years of service and must have at least six months of service. This was brought in to discourage the states from appointing acting DGPs of their choice a few months before their retirement, a practice increasingly being used by several states.
In September 2022, the UP government sent a list of around 38 IPS officers to the UPSC for consideration. However, the UPSC sent a query back to the government, asking why Goel was removed in the first place and seeking a list of all officers who were eligible for the post as in May 2022 — when the DGP was removed.
While news reports said that the government sent a reply to the UPSC about reasons for the removal of Goel, a senior state government officer confirmed that no reply was sent to the UPSC by the state government after that.
“No reply was sent to the state government after that. Goel is retiring in February 2024 and the government is hoping that the issue will be resolved after that. Hopefully, the matter will be over after February,” the official said.
‘Direct communication with top echelons, CM’s trust’
“Lok Sabha elections are approaching and had the DGP retired in the middle of polls, the Election Commission would have gotten involved and could have taken a decision contrary to the state government’s view. Further, the most important fact is that Kumar enjoys the CM’s trust,” a senior state government official told ThePrint.
“Prashant Kumar has been handling the job of the ADG (law and order) for the past four years almost and is one of the officers who enjoy the CM’s trust. He is well-versed with the law and order situation of the state and has direct communication with the top echelons of the state.”
Kumar’s three-year tenure as ADG (Meerut) coincided with the UP Police’s image makeover as a force with “zero tolerance” for crime. He was appointed ADG (law and order) in May 2020.
As on January 6, 2024, 195 criminals were shot dead by police in “encounters”, according to the UP Police, while over 10,900 encounters have taken place.
Kumar had hit the headlines in October 2020 when he cited a forensic report to say the victim in the Hathras gangrape and murder case wasn’t raped.
Later, the CBI filed a charge sheet invoking IPC sections dealing with gangrape and murder along with other charges under the SC/ST Act against four accused. It found lapses on the part of the UP Police, including delays in recording the victim’s statement as well as her medical examination.
In March 2023, however, an SC/ST court in Hathras acquitted three out of four accused persons, and convicted one person for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, in the case due to lack of evidence.
‘Clear violation of SC guidelines’
Prakash Singh, former DGP of UP and Assam and ex-DG BSF, told ThePrint that the appointment of the fourth acting DGP in a row is a clear violation of the Supreme Court guidelines.
It was Singh who had filed the petition in the Supreme Court that led to the detailed guidelines related to the appointment of a DGP in 2006. The apex court, in its landmark judgement in the famous Prakash Singh case, mandated country-wide police reforms, including its important directive to have a transparent, merit-based process of selection of DGP.
The directive aimed at providing for a fixed minimum tenure of two years to the officers selected for the post of the DGP and other guidelines.
“This is a clear violation of the Supreme Court guidelines,” Singh told ThePrint.
The retired IPS officer confirmed that he has filed another petition in the top court over the prevailing situation in the country over the appointment of DGPs.
Apart from Uttar Pradesh, states such as Punjab, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have appointed acting DGPs with full additional charge, thereby bypassing the mandatory requirement to approach the UPSC with a panel of names of IPS officers eligible for the job.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
Also Read: Why the appointment of DGPs has become a tussle between states & UPSC since 2006