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Asthana’s appointment as Delhi CP under SC scanner

Kashmir Times. Dated: 8/3/2021 2:22:27 AM

KT NEWS SERVICE
NEW DELHI, Aug 2: The Supreme Court has agreed to hear on Thursday a criminal contempt petition filed by Delhi lawyer Manohar Lal Sharma against the Prime Minister, Home Minister, and the Ministry of Home Affairs, challenging the appointment of Gujarat cadre IPS officer Rakesh Asthana as the Delhi Commissioner of Police, just three days before his retirement.

Also listed on Thursday is another PIL of Sharma, a serial litigant, for a Supreme Court-monitored probe into spying of many mobiles, using the Israeli Pegasus spyware.

His contention in the instant case is that appointment of Asthana violates the top court's direction in July 2018 in the case of Prakash Singh, a former Director General of Police in Uttr Pradesh, that no officer with less than three months of service should be considered for appointment as head of a police force.

In that judgment, a Bench of then Chief Justice Dipak Misra (since retired) and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud had directed all the states to "send their proposals in anticipation of the vacancies to the Union Public Service Commission, well in time at least three months prior to the date of retirement of the incumbent DGP.”

It had said that the UPSC will prepare a panel of three senior-most officers with a reasonable remaining tenure up to retirement (two years or close to it) and send it to the state government to pick one of them and immediately appoint him as the police chief.

In his petition, Sharma suspects that the UPSC was not at all consulted in the appointment made by the Cabinet Committee on Appointments, headed by the Prime Minister.

Asthana, who had earlier served as a CBI Special Director, had shot to limelight after the tussle between him and then CBI Director Alok Verma, who was summarily sacked in a midnight drama and shunting out of Asthana from the agency.

Also before the court was a plea by the rape survivor for permission to marry the former Brother.

The former priest had come to the top court in an appeal against the Kerala High Court disallowing him to marry the victim girl. A Bench of Justices Vineet Saran and Dinesh Maheshwari refused to interfere, holding that the High Court has consciously made strong observations after noting everything.

The counsel of the girl said a joint prayer has been made by her and the former priest to get married. He also took exception to the sweeping observations made by the High Court in a bail matter.