Coveted Top Cop posts up for grabs

The race for the mostsought after posts of Police Commissioner of Mumbai and Thane in the State is hotting up, as both these chairs will fall vacant in the next six weeks. Also, the chairs of three other senior posts will be empty in the next two weeks, since they will be calling it a day.

Following the superannuation of Thane Police Commissioner S P S adav and Special Secretary in the state home department, P P Srivastava, on January 31, 2011 and Director of Anti- Corruption Bureau ( ACB) Hasan Gafoor hanging his boots on December 31 last, politicians are lobbying for some of these posts.

The police officers in the race for the most- sought post of Mumbai and Thane police commissioner are Additional Director General of Police, Arup Patnaik of the 1979 Indian Police Service ( IPS) batch and Vijay Kamble and Dr Satyapal Singh, both of the 1980 IPS batch.

Also, with state Director General of Police, D Sivanandan retiring on February 28, 2011, the state government is learnt to have already worked out a tentative transfer list.

The list has been worked out keeping in mind that the appointment of the Thane Commissioner and Mumbai Commissioner should be based on purely seniority, experience and competency levels of the police officer appointed to these two key posts in the state.

However, the state government does not intend to reshuffle the Police Commissioners of Pune, Nagpur and Navi Mumbai as these postings were carried out less than six months back and hence the home department is not too keen to disturb the working of these commissionerates at the moment.

According to sources in the home department, adav’s retirement on January 31, has led to the government working on the promotion and transfer of Mumbai’s Police Commissioner Sanjeev Dayal, who is likely to be either the state DGP or Director of Home Guards and Civil Defence or Director of Police Housing and Welfare, since the government is toying with idea of appointing the incumbent Director General of Home Guards and Civil Defence A V Parasnis, state DGP. Parasnis is the senior- most IPS officer after Sivanandan in the state and retires only in June 30, 2011.

“ On March 1, 2011, Parasnis will be the senior most officer in the state, followed by Additional Director General of ACB, P Subrmanium who is officiating as ACB Director since January 1, 2011 and then Dayal. Subramanium is expected to be promoted and posted as full time ACB Director on February1, 2011 While Parasnic is expected to takeover the baton from Sivanandan on March 1, 2011, Dayal will be promoted and fitted in any of the existing posts of DGP rank. There are not many officers in the fray for the Mumbai and Thane police commissioners, since majority of the 1980 and 1981 police officers are either Police Commissioners of other states or occupying choicest postings in the state force,” claimed a home department official.