SUMAN K SHRIVASTAVA
Ranchi, Feb. 11: The suspense over the new Director General of Police (DGP) continues after the incumbent DGP Neeraj Sinha retired today.
According to official sources, the file concerned is pending at the level of Chief Minister Hemant Soren. Today being the holiday, he did not take any decision over it. Also, Chief Secretary Sukhdev Singh was said to be out of Ranchi.
Sources close to the Chief Minister, however, said that the decision in this regard will be taken by Monday.
The three IPS officers who have been shortlisted by the UPSC and sent to the Jharkhand government included Ajay Bhatnagar and Ajay Kumar Singh, both from the 1989 batch and Anil Palta from the 1990 batch. Ajay Bhatnagar and Ajay Kumar Singh are said to be front-runners.
The corridors of power were agog with speculation that the intense lobbying has put the chief minister in a dilemma and he may go for an IPS officer who is not in the panel as a stop gap arrangement.
However, it appears not possible since the Jharkhand Government stated in the Supreme Court on January 16 that it has received the names of three senior IPS officers from the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) and would appoint one of them as the new Director General of Police (DGP) on February 12 after the current police chief demits office.
It was after this undertaking that a Bench, led by Chief Justice D. Y. Chandrachud, disposed of a contempt petition against the Jharkhand government and its present DGP.
The government’s indecision meant that Jharkhand will remain without a DGP on Sunday. Earlier also, there were occasions when the notification had not been issued on the day the incumbent DGP retired. However, the government had either issued the notification the next day or made some stop gap arrangements.
For example, the notification for the new DGP had not been issued on the day when SM Caire retired on June 30, 2005. However, the notification for VD Ram as the new DGP was issued the next morning on June 1. Similarly, when D K Pandey retired on May 31, 2019 the notification for new DGP K N Chaubey was issued but he did not take charge as he was out of the country at that time. “So, Neeraj Sinha had been given charge for nine days till Chaubey returned and assumed the charge,” recalled an IPS officer.
Notably, Ajay Bhatnagar is a 1989 batch Jharkhand cadre IPS officer and has a master’s degree in Economics. Bhatnagar is the joint director of CBI in Delhi.
The other candidate, Ajay Kumar Singh, has an MSc in Chemistry and hails from Uttar Pradesh. Singh is DG cum Chief of the Anti-Corruption Bureau in Jharkhand. On the other hand, Anil Palta is a 1990-batch Jharkhand cadre IPS officer from Haryana. He is presently DG Railways in Jharkhand.
