CAT Bench quashes appointment of IPS officers as DGP

The Kolkata Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal today set aside the appointments of five IPS officers to the post of Director General of Police in West Bengal, including the present DGP of the state.
The Tribunal (CAT), acting on a petition by IPS officer Nazrul Islam challenging the non-grant of promotion to the post of DGP, set aside the appointments, thus implying that the five DGPs would have to vacate their posts.
The five officers are West Bengal DGP G M P Reddy, Ravinderjit Singh Nalwa (DGP Homeguard), Vijay Kumar (DGP Enforcement), Anil Kumar (DGP Armed Police) and Raj Kanojia (DGP CoastalSecurity).

Nazrul Islam's counsel Surojit Samanta said that based on documents he received under RTI, the IPS officer claimed in his petition that a selection committee that was constituted on December five, 2012, suffered from illegalities in its constitution.
It was also claimed in the petition that the persons who had sat in the committee had not acted in accordance with the rules for the selection process.
The state Advocate General opposed the petition before the Tribunal.

Justice (retd) Pratap Kumar Ray, member judicial and R Bandopadhyay, administrative member, hearing both the parties, today held that constitution of the selection committee was illegal.

"Therefore, all consequential actions of the committee have been set aside and quashed by the Tribunal," Samanta said.
"This means that the five DGPs, appointed by virtue of that selection by the committee on December five, 2012, would have to vacate their posts forthwith," the counsel said.
The Tribunal directed the state government to set up a fresh selection committee, which will sit on February 18 and consider all those eligible as on December five, 2012, afresh.
This will include Nazrul Islam, who is at present in the rank of ADG, Samanta said.
The committee would declare the results on February 19, whereafter the recommendations would be implemented by the state government, the Tribunal directed.

Nazrul Islam, who was sidelined by the then Left Front government in West Bengal, had been taken to the Railways by Mamata Banerjee when she was the Railway Minister.
He was brought back to the state after Banerjee took over as the chief minister.
The IPS officer reportedly fell apart with the present government and is at present posted as ADG, Provisioning.
He moved the CAT after he was allegedly not considered for promotion.