The Supreme Court today dismissed petitions challenging the appointment of Dinkar Gupta as the Director General of Police of Punjab.
The petitions, filed by IPS officers Siddharth Chattopadhyay and Mohammad Mustafa, had challenged the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s order of upholding the appointment of Dinkar Gupta.
Senior Advocate Krishnan Venugopal, who appeared for Siddharth Chattopadhyay, contended that 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 Chattopadhyay, who was considered unfit for empanelment.
Senior Advocate Paramjit Singh Patwalia, who represented Mohammad Mustafa, submitted that the entire selection process was completely tailor made. Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi submitted that appointments were made based on Draft Guidelines 2009 .
Moreover, Senior Advocate Aman Lekhi for the Union Public Service Commission, had submitted that the Draft Guidelines 2009 were legal, binding and in conformity with the Prakash Singh Judgement.
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The bench of Justices L. Nageswara Rao, Sanjiv Khanna and B.R. Gavai after considering the arguments, dismissed the petitions after reserving orders in the petition on September 15, 2021.
On January 17, 2020, the Central Administrative Tribunal had set aside the appointment of Gupta as the state police chief. The Punjab and Haryana High Court on November 6, 2020 upheld the appointment of Punjab DGP Dinkar Gupta.
Gupta was appointed DGP on February 7, 2019 superseding five senior officers, including Mustafa and Chattopadhyay.