UPSC agrees in Supreme Court to defer Odisha DGP selection meeting
A petition against the Odisha DGP selection process alleges that the process was in violation of the Supreme Court’s Prakash Singh judgment; it also alleges that the Odisha government was trying to include a junior officer, who was given promotion only a day back, in the list of candidates
The Supreme Court has directed the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to postpone the meeting scheduled for August 13 to finalize the selection of Odisha's Director General of Police (DGP). A bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant intervened in a petition filed by senior advocate P. Chidambaram, who claimed that the Odisha government was attempting to include a junior officer in the candidate list for the DGP post.
The court's intervention follows a 2006 judgment in the Prakash Singh case, which emphasized that the DGP's position should be free from political or external pressures. The court had previously ruled out the concept of acting DGPs and mandated a minimum fixed tenure of two years for State police chiefs. The UPSC had been preparing a panel of suitable officers, and the State was expected to appoint one of the empanelled officers as DGP immediately following the retirement of the incumbent.
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