Appointment Of Rakesh Asthana As Delhi Police Commissioner: CPIL Seeks Intervention In Plea Before Delhi High Court

The Centre for Public Interest Litigation has filed an application before the Delhi High Court, seeking to intervene in a plea challenging the appointment of IPS Officer Rakesh Asthana as the Delhi Police Commissioner. The NGO had initially moved the Supreme Court challenging Asthana's appointment.

Delhi Police Commissioner, Rakesh Asthana is a 1984-batch Gujarat cadre IPS officer who took charge as Delhi Police Commissioner recently.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the NGO, told a Division Bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh that the Supreme Court has granted them liberty to file an intervention before the High Court. He clarified that their plea has not been disposed of and is merely adjourned for two weeks, for the Supreme Court to have the benefit of High Court's judgement.

Supreme Court Asks Delhi High Court To Decide Plea Challenging Rakesh Asthana's Appointment As Delhi Police Commissioner Within 2 Weeks

At the outset, Bhushan alleged that the main petition, filed by one Sadre Alam through Advocate BS Bagga, is a complete replica of what the CPIL had filed before the Top Court. He stated,

"It is a very peculiar case. Please see this petition alongside our application. They have copied everything, every comma, underline, precedents. Please adjourn it for a day and look at the kind of abuse of process in this case."

Bhushan stated that on the very first day of hearing, the High Court had asked the parties if any similar case is pending before any Court. Unfortunately, he said, neither the Petitioner nor the Respondents informed the Bench about filing of CPIL's petition before the Supreme Court.

ASG Chetan Sharma however denied having knowledge about CPIL's petition at that time. Advocate Bagga on the other hand resisted the allegations while submitting that he has no objection with CPIL's intervention.

CPIL is aggrieved by the fact that Asthana was appointed as the Commissioner just four days before his retirement, thereby extending his service beyond the date of his superannuation. It also claims that the appointment order is in clear and blatant breach of the directions passed by Apex Court in the Prakash Singh case (2006) 8 SCC 1 as:

Alam in his plea has stated that Asthana's appointment as Delhi Police Commissioner four days before he was due to retire gives a complete go-by to the statutory rules. The plea states, "the requirement for exercise of power under Rule 3 of the Residuary Rules [for relaxing the Requirement of Rule 16(1) of the Rules, 1958] is not satisfied. The impugned orders dated 27.07.2021 are the reform, completely illegal and clearly smack of mala fide, and have presumably been issued only to promote the interests of the Respondent No.2 as well as of those in the Central government."

The Court will continue hearing the case tomorrow. Meanwhile, Registry has been asked to put CPIL's intervention application on Court's record.

Case Title: Sadre Alam v. UoI & Ors.