BREAKING : Supreme Court Dismisses Pleas Challenging Appointment Of Dinkar Gupta As Punjab DGP

The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed the special leave petitions filed challenging the Punjab and Haryana High Court's order of upholding the appointment of Dinkar Gupta as the the Director General of Police of Punjab

The bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao, Sanjiv Khanna and BR Gavai dismissed the petitions filed by IPS Officers Siddharth Chattopadhyay and Mohammad Mustafa, who challenged the order dated February 7, 2019 appointing Dinkar Gupta's as Punjab DGP.

"Appeals are dismissed", Justice Rao, the presiding judge of the bench, said today morning, pronouncing the judgment. The detailed judgment is awaited.

The bench had reserved orders in the petition on September 15,2021. Dinkar Gupta had proceeded on leave in October 2021 after Charanjit Singh Channi replaced Capt Amarinder Singh as the chief minister.

Details of hearing

Appearing for Siddharth Chattopadhyay (1986 batch officer), Senior Advocate Krishnan Venugopal argued that Chattopadhyay was considered unfit for empanelment since Suresh Arora, the then DGP being the ex officio member of the Empanelment Committee for selection of post of DGP had reason to be biased against him.

Representing, Mohammad Mustafa (now retired), Senior Advocate Paramjit Singh Patwalia while emphasising on the word "Farce" used by Central Administrative Tribunal ("CAT") to describe the process based on which Gupta was appointed submitted that the entire selection process was completely tailor made.

ASG Aman Lekhi for Union Public Service Commission ("UPSC"), had submitted that the Draft Guidelines, 2009 were legal, binding and in conformity with the Prakash Singh Judgement. Arguing that the Guidelines were approved by the Supreme Court, ASG further added that the selection was based on merit and was not vitiated on malafide.

Representing the State of Punjab, Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi submitted that based on Draft Guidelines, 2009 scores of appointments were made and it was not for the first time that an appointment was made based on them in 2020.

"To say that the High Court isn't aware of the guidelines is too much to swallow," Senior Counsel added.

Senior counsel Shyam Divan appearing on behalf of former DGP Suresh Arora submitted that both the Punjab and Haryana High Court as well as the CAT had rejected the argument of the petitioners that there was a likelihood of bias against Suresh Arora. The plea of bias was not available to Siddharth Chattopadhyay.

Senior Advocate Mainder Singh appearing for the incumbent DGP Dinkar Gupta raised serious objections to the status report submitted by Siddharth Chattopadhyay to the Punjab and Haryana High Court on behalf of the SIT constituted to probe the nexus between police authorities and the drug mafia.

Background

IPS Officers Mohammad Mustafa and Siddharth Chattopadhyay (1985 and 1986 batch belonging to Punjab Cadre respectively) had approached the Central Administrative Tribunal ("CAT") challenging order dated February 7, 2019 wherein the Government of Punjab appointed Dinkar Gupta, an IPS officer of 1987 batch of Punjab cadre, as Director General of Police, Head of Police Force based on the recommendations of UPSC Empanelment Committee.

Two member bench of CAT Chairman L Narsimha Reddy and M Jamshed upon IPS Officer's application quashed Gupta's appointment as DGP and observed that the procedure adopted by UPSC and the Empanelment Committee for preparation of the panel for the purpose of selection and appointment of DGP was violative of the procedure stipulated by the Hon'ble Supreme Court "Prakash Singh & others v. Union of India & others" (2006) 8 SCC 1.

Aggrieved by CAT's order UPSC, State of Punjab and Dinkar Gupta had approached Punjab and Haryana High Court.

​​The division bench of Justices Sawant Singh and Sant Prakash on November 6, 2020 while holding that the CAT "exceeded its power of judicial review by transgressing into the domain of law regarding judicial review of the decisions/ recommendations of the Selection Committee," set aside CAT's order that had quashed Dinkar's Appointment.

"The Tribunal erred in holding that the Draft Guidelines-2009 and the procedure adopted by the UPSC/Empanelment Committee for the selection of the DGP (Head of Police Force) for the state of Punjab in January-February 2019 was in contravention of the Prakash Singh's judgment (supra). The procedure adopted by UPSC/Empanelment Committee and the Minutes of meeting of the Empanelment Committee dated 04.02.2019 and consequential order dated 07.02.2019 by state of Punjab are held to be valid and legal," the High Court had also observed.

Case Title: Mohd Mustafa v. Union of India and Ors SLP(c) 14623/2020, Siddharth Chattopadhyay versus Union Public Service Commission SLP(c) No.14982/202

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