After appointment of Rajnish Seth as Maha DGP, Bombay HC disposes of PIL on his predecessor Sanjay Pandey

In the wake of the appointment of Rajnish Seth as Maharashtrarsquos Director General of Police the Bombay High Court on Monday disposed of a PIL which had raised objections to IPS officer Sanjay Pandeyrsquos appointment as the acting DGPMaharashtra Advocate General Ashutosh Kumbhakoni produced before the HC a copy of the government resolution GR issued on February 18 this year notifying Sethrsquos appointment and his joining letterHe told the bench that Seth had taken charge of the post on February 18Kumbhakoni informed the court that the state had appointed Seth one of the three IPS officers empaneled for the post by the Union Public Service Commission UPSC in November last year following which a bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice MS Karnik disposed of the PILldquoAll that the GR says is that you Seth have received an empanelment from the UPSC You are one of the three officers referred by the UPSC and are being selected for the post We have not given any reasons observations findings It is plain and simplerdquo the Advocate General saidThe top police post in Maharashtra fell vacant in January last year after the then DGP Subodh Jaiswal left midterm to take over as head of the Central Industrial Security Force CISF He was subsequently posted as the CBI director The Maharashtra government had then appointed Pandey the senior most officer in the state as the acting DGPIn November last year the UPSC selected the names of three officers including Seth from a list of 18 IPS officers considered for the post Pandeyrsquos name was in the list of 18 officers but he was not among the three officers finally empaneled by the UPSCThe Maharashtra government however wrote to the UPSC asking it to reconsider Pandeyrsquos candidature for the DGPrsquos postAdvocate Datta Mane had filed a public interest litigation PIL through his counsel Abhinav Chandrachud claiming that Pandey continuing as the acting DGP was in breach of the 2006 Supreme Court judgement on police reforms and that there was no legal provision for an acting or adhoc post of the DGPThe arguments in the case had prompted the HC to observe that Pandey seemed to be the ldquoblueeyed officerrdquo of the Maharashtra governmentThe court had asked the state government at that time if the latter was ldquoshowing favourrdquo to PandeyThe state government had on February 10 urged the HC to refrain from passing an order and to give it some time to rethink its representation sent to the UPSC on Pandeyrsquos candidatureOn Monday Kumbhakoni told the HC that Sethrsquos appointment was in accordance with the police reform guidelinesThe HC accepted the statement and disposed of the PIL saying ldquonothing survivedrdquo anymore for the courtrsquos consideration of the issueThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever