The Indian Express: Mumbai: Monday, September 11, 2017.
MORE THAN a
year after the then director general of Maharashtra Anti Corruption Bureau
(ACB), Satish Mathur, was given charge as of the state’s Director General of
Police, the post left vacant by his redesignation remains vacant. A reply in
response to a Right To Information (RTI) application filed by The Indian Express
shows DGP Mathur, in April this year, wrote to Additional Chief Secretary
(Home), Sudhir Shrivastava, requesting him to fill up the vacant post to avoid
legal issues in future. The letter written on April 12, addressed to
Shrivastava, says the post of DG, ACB, has been lying vacant since July 31, 2016.
It says apart
from being the ACB chief, the DG is also a member of the Police Establishment
Board. The PEB-1 that comprises five members, including the DG ACB considered
the second most important police posting after the DGP recommends promotions
and postings of IPS officers in the state.
The letter
says: “The said post, if allowed to remain vacant for a long time, could lead
to legal issues in the future”.
It adds:
“There are policemen of the rank of Additional Director General (ADG) that are
available for promotion to the rank of DG. A proposal to this effect has been
sent to the government vide a letter on December 17, 2016. It is requested that
the post of DG ACB be filled by the government by appointing a suitable officer
at the earliest.” Repeated calls and
text messages to Shrivastava went unanswered.
Ironically, several officers who were in the contention for the ACB
post, after Mathur was
made the state
DGP, have already retired or are due for
retirement soon.
After Datta
Padsalgikar, a 1982 batch officer, was made the Mumbai Police Commissioner,
senior DG rank officers who were eligible for the post included the then DG
Home Guards and former Mumbai Police
commissioner Rakesh Maria,
Meeran
Borwankar and Prabhat Ranjan. While Maria retired on January 31 this year,
Ranjan retired in August.
Borwankar,
who went to Delhi on deputation as the DG, Bureau of Police Research and
Development, is due to retire at the end of this month.
A former ACB
head said: “The ACB DG is a sensitive posting. It is widely believed that till
one point, the state government was not interested in appointing certain
officers. But the post cannot be kept vacant for this long. The ACB chief is
also part of the five-member panel that recommends postings of IPS officers.”
Retired IPS
officer and former ACB DG Praveen Dixit, however, said: “In the absence of DG,
ACB, it (the bureau) is headed by an ADG rank officer, which is good enough. It
depends on the determination and the hard work of the officer in-charge to
ensure the ACB functions properly.
In the
absence of the DG, I believe the ADG ACB attends the PEB meetings.” Markings on the records of the PEB meetings
for the past year accessed under the RTI, however, show the presence of
the four other members of the board.
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