DGP appointment: Punjab and Haryana High Court stays CAT order

In a breather for the Congress government, the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Tuesday stayed the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) order that had set aside the appointment of senior IPS officer Dinkar Gupta as the Punjab police chief. A bench of justices Jaswant Singh and Sant Prakash also issued notice to the Punjab government, UPSC and other respondents, seeking their reply by February 26.

The Punjab government as well as DGP Gupta on Monday had approached the high court, challenging the CAT order. In its order, the bench asked the Punjab chief secretary to file an affidavit detailing "the criteria followed for fixing the number of eligible panel officers for consideration vis-a-vis the Department of Personnel and Training instructions, if any and the material sent to the UPSC for assessment of the panel officers".

The UPSC was also directed to file an affidavit indicating consideration of relative assessment of the panel officers on the criteria of 'range of experience', according to the order. "In the meantime, operation of impugned order passed by the learned tribunal (CAT) shall remain stayed," the order stated.

The court stayed the CAT order, senior advocate Puneet Bali, the counsel for DGP Gupta, said. The next date of hearing is February 26, he said.

The arguments during the court proceedings went on for two hours, Punjab Advocate General Atul Nanda said. Challenging the CAT order, the state government had argued in its petition that "keeping in view the sensitive border location and the existing ground situation as per intelligence report it would not be in public interest to be without Director General of Police heading the police force".

The Punjab government had also argued the procedure followed for preparing a panel of eligible officers and the criteria followed by the empanelment committee for objective assessment on the aspect of 'range of experience' in the five core policing areas (intelligence, law & order, administration, investigation and security) was as per the provisions laid down in the draft guidelines 2009 framed by the UPSC. On January 17, the CAT had set aside the appointment of Gupta as the state police chief that had come as a big blow to the Congress-led Punjab government.

A two-member bench of CAT chairman L Narsimha Reddy and M Jamshed had pronounced the order on an appeal by senior IPS officers Mohammad Mustafa and Siddhharth Chattopadhyaya, who had challenged Gupta's appointment on the grounds that they were "ignored" despite being senior to Gupta. The police officers also opposed the contention of the empanelment committee, which had sent a report to the UPSC, saying the officers lacked experience in core policing areas.

While Mustafa is a 1985-batch officer, Chattopadhyaya is a 1986-batch officer. Gupta is a 1987-batch officer. Gupta was appointed the DGP in 2019. He superseded five senior officers, including Mustafa and Chattopadhyaya.

In his previous stint, Gupta was posted as the director general of police, (intelligence) Punjab.