MUMBAI: In a severe blow to the Maharashtra government, particularly to Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister R.R. Patil, a two-member bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) yesterday declared the appointment of Maharashtra State Director General of Police (DGP) Anami Narayan Roy as “illegal” and ordered the state government to remove him within a month.
Roy’s appointment as the state police chief was challenged by Suprakash Chakraborthy, director general of police (Home Guards and Civil Defense), who said that Roy’s appointment and elevation was against the rules.
Chakraborthy, in his petition, had brought to attention of the CAT bench that Roy was the fourth senior-most Indian Police Service (IPS) officer in Maharashtra and that he had unduly superseded three other senior Director Generals of Police S.S. Virk (Housing), the petitioner and J.D. Virkar (Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB).
Chakraborthy also told the bench that all the three senior director generals of police, were promoted a year ahead of Roy and were senior to him in service by two years.
However, the Maharashtra government counsel defended the government decision to appoint Roy and said that Roy was the most meritorious officer in Maharashtra and was thus eligible for the coveted post of the main state DGP post.
The CAT bench did not concur with the views of the government and referred to a Supreme Court judgment in 2006 in the Uttar Pradesh’s DGP Prakash Singh case, which said that the state DGP must be selected from the three senior-most officers, and thus the Maharashtra government was duty-bound to consider the three senior most officers excluding Roy.
Earlier in the day, the Bombay High Court dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition filed by a local journalist, R.R. Tripathi, challenging Roy’s appointment, stating that the matter was pending before the CAT.
Roy is referred to as the blue-eyed boy of federal agriculture minister and Nationalist Congress Party President Sharad Pawar in the circle of senior IPS officers in the state. It is also said that though the government was aware that Roy was junior to three senior police officers, yet, he was allowed to supersede them and get elevated to the top post due to the generosity of Pawar, whose party holds the home portfolio.
According to police sources reached by Arab News, there was jubilation among a lobby of senior IPS officials hostile to Roy. A senior police official of the rank of additional director general, commenting on the CAT judgment, told Arab News “It’s happy, happy time once again.”
