Vijayawada: Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has not yet recommended the name of N. Sambasiva Rao for the post of Director General of Police (DGP) to the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), with the result that Mr Rao continues as in-charge DGP. There is reportedly a huge demand from a lobby to replace Mr Sambasiva Rao with a 1985-batch officer.
The exercise of appointing the in-charge DGP as a regular DGP usually takes four or five weeks after getting clearance from the UPSC, but in Mr Samba-siva Rao’s case, the appoi-ntment has been kept on hold for three months.
A list of five senior DG rank officials is sent to the UPSC by the state government as per Supreme Court guidelines. After scrutinising the list, UPSC will short list three candidates. The state government then selects one of the three officers to be the DGP.
There are seven IPS officers other than Mr Samb-asiva Rao in the DGP ca-dre. Two of them, S. A. Huda (1979 batch) and S.V. Ramana Murthy (1981 ba-tch) are senior to Mr Sam-basiva Rao (1984 batch).
Four IPS officers of the 1985 and 1986 batch were given DGP rank: M. Malakondaiah, R.P. Thakur, Gowtham Sawang and Vinay Ranjan Ray. Mr Rao is the third senior-most IPS officer in the AP cadre. While he is expected to get the appointment, a senior IPS officer expressed his doubts as the state government has been tardy in sending its list to the UPSC. It looks like the government is intentionally dragging its feet in the appointment of the DGP, the officer said, and added that it is not best practice to prolong the process.
Another police officer who does not want to disclose his identity was of the opinion that the government intends to appoint a 1985 batch IPS officer instead of Mr Sambasiva Rao. He added that the Chief Minister is hesitating to take a decision because he is being pressurised by a lobby.
