Sanjay Pandey, IPS officer and acting Director General of Police (DGP) of the state, told the Bombay High Court on Tuesday that the UPSC selection committee ignored his outstanding Annual Confidential Record (ACR) and left his name out of the empanelment for the Maharashtra DGP's post.
Navroz Seervai, Pandey’s counsel, urged a bench of chief justice (CJ) Dipankar Datta and justice MS Karnik to make the IPS officer a party respondent to the Public Interest Litigation seeking directions to the Maharashtra government to fill up the vacant post of the DGP in accordance with the 2006 Supreme Court judgement.
Petitioner Datta Mane contended that as per the SC judgment, the DG post has to be a permanent one with the officer having minimum tenure of two years and it cannot be an acting post.
Pandey was appointed as the acting DGP last year after the then DGP Subodh Jaiswal vacated the post midterm following his transfer to the CBI.
Seervai sought that the officer had a lot to say and hence he should be added as a respondent.
“I (Pandey) have given 30 years of my life to the police service. I am a man of utmost integrity… Every single ACR (Pandey's) since November (2021) had grade eight and above, which is outstanding. However, this was ignored by two out of the three selection committee members (third being Kunte),” argued Seervai.
The counsel further argued that Pandey was the “most affected” party in this matter and yet, had not been made a respondent to the case. “Whichever way an order is passed, the party most affected will he Sanjay Pandey. He has a lot to say to the court. No order should be passed by this Court without making him a party. He is a man of most integrity. He will be adversely affected. The UPSC has not rightly considered his records,” added Seervai.
The court remarked that while integrity and seniority were good qualities for an IPS officer to possess, the same did not “entitle” him a right to the DGP's post.
The HC did not allow Pandey to intervene in the PIL saying that if he was aggrieved by non-inclusion of his name then he should avail appropriate remedy, and not in a PIL court. However, the court has asked his counsel to submit a note of his arguments.
The judges agreed with counsel Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh, appearing for the union government, that there was no legal provision under which the state government could have asked the UPSC to reconsider its decision after the selection committee had signed off on the names. Besides, the three names had been selected out of a list of 21 officers that was based on the Maharashtra government's own proposal, Singh told the court.
The judges even questioned as to why then chief secretary Sitaram Kunte, as a member of the committee, not raised the grievance or pointed out the error committed, if any, by the committee before signing off on the three names.
Kumbhkoni however, contended that Kunte had pointed out that Pandey's name was being left out erroneously but the same was not considered.
“The chief secretary said so orally because he did not recall the Rules. He came back to Mumbai from Delhi after the November 1 meeting, checked the empanelment Rules and realised his grievance was valid. So he wrote to the UPSC as an officer of the state government,” said Kumbhkoni.
However, the judges, refused to accept the argument and said that Kumbhkoni's arguments only ended up showing Kunte in a poorer light.
CJ said: “Mr. AG, the more you argue, the poorer you make the Chief Secretary (Kunte) look. If he didn't remember the rules, he should have asked the other members to keep the decision at abeyance, checked the rule book.”
The HC has reserved the PIL for order.
