SC says plea against Rakesh Asthana’s appointment as Delhi Police chief to be listed for hearing after being numbered

New Delhi: The Supreme Court Tuesday said the contempt plea against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah for appointing Rakesh Asthana as Delhi Police Commissioner in alleged violation of a judgement would be posted for hearing if the registry has numbered it. “If it is numbered, we will post it for hearing,” a bench comprising Chief Justice NV Ramana and Justice Surya Kant told lawyer ML Sharma who was seeking listing of his plea for hearing on Monday. “I have filed a contempt petition against the appointment of Rakesh Asthana,” Sharma said. A 1984-batch IPS officer, Asthana, serving as the director general of Border Security Force, was appointed Delhi police Commissioner on 27 July, four days before his superannuation on 31 July. He will have tenure of one year as police chief of the national capital. According to the petition, the Prime Minister, who is the head of the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, and the Home Minister jointly decided and appointed Asthana as the Commissioner. The petition alleged this is against the judgement of the apex court in the Prakash Singh case. In his petition, Sharma said that according to the apex court’s judgement of 3 July, 2018, the process of appointment should begin three months prior to the vacancy and the person being appointed must have a reasonable period of service left. Besides the contempt action, the plea has sought a declaration from the apex court that the appointment of Asthana be held illegal “being contra to the judgment dated 3 July, 2018”. The top court had issued a slew of directions on police reforms in the country and ordered all states and Union Territories not to appoint any police officer as acting Director General of Police (DGP). It had also directed all states to send the names of senior police officers to the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) for being considered as probable candidates to be appointed as DGPs or Police Commissioners as the case may be. The UPSC, in turn, will prepare a list of three most suitable officers and the states will be free to appoint one of them as police chief, it had said. The bench had also said that endeavour should be made that a person, who had been selected and appointed as DGP, has reasonable period of service left. These directions were issued on interim pleas which were filed in the disposed of PIL, titled as Praksah Singh versus Union of India. Prior to this, the apex court, deciding the PIL filed by two former DGPs Prakash Singh and N K Singh in 2006, had given a slew of directions, including setting up of a state security commission to ensure that the government does not exercise unwarranted influence on the police. It had then said the appointment of DGPs and police officers should be merit-based and transparent and officers like DGPs and Superintendent of Police (SP) should have a minimum fixed tenure of two years. It had recommended separation of police functions of investigation and maintaining law and order.