HYDERABAD: Principal Secretary (Home) P Gautam Kumar on Thursday filed a petition in the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) challenging the appointment of V Dinesh Reddy, who is the junior-most officer in the 1977 batch, as the State DGP.Unlike his previous petition against the appointment of K Aravinda Rao to the same post in which he pointed at several irregularities, this time, Gautam Kumar raised only one point: The State government has failed to follow Supreme Court guidelines issued in the Prakash Singh case. The CAT is likely to take a call on the admission of the plea on Monday.The State government appointed Dinesh Reddy by overlooking five officers senior to him, KR Nandan, P Gautam Kumar, Balwinder Singh, A Sivasankar and Umesh Kumar.In his plea, Gautam Kumar pointed out that the apex court in its guidelines had made it clear that the DGP should be selected from among three officers empanelled by the Union Public Service Commission. But the State Government appointed the junior-most officer in utter violation of the court’s guidelines, he said. The question, he raised, was why did the government fail to send names of officers to the UPSC for the selection of a new DGP.Almost one month back, the CAT had set aside the appointment Aravinda Rao (who retired recently) as the State police chief but its verdict was stayed by the High Court. In its verdict, the CAT had quashed GO 254 issued on May 17, 2010 through which six posts were temporarily added to the state IPS cadre in the DGP grade in violation of the IPS cadre rules. The posts were filled by elevating IPS officers of the 1977 batch. The CAT had said Dinesh Reddy was eligible to be DGP only from November 1, 2010.“The appointment of Dinesh Reddy was challenged only on the ground that the state government did not follow the judgment in the Prakash Singh case,” Gautam Kumar’s counsel J Sudheer told Express.
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