DM questions SSP’s move to transfer SHOs without his nod

LUCKNOW/NOIDA: The IAS-IPS turf war in Uttar Pradesh took a curious turn on Friday evening when GB Nagar DM returned the transfer order of 10 police inspectors sent to him for approval by the SSP as the transferred officers took up their new postings even before the top cop’s letter reached his office for a nod.
DM Brajesh Narain Singh also shot a letter to the district police chief, expressing his expressing his displeasure over the entire matter.

The letter comes a day after the central IPS Association tweeted an appeal to chief minister Yogi Adityanath urging him to withdraw the recent directives from the home department which reiterated that district police chiefs should seek written approval of the district magistrates to transfer and post station officers. The tweet said that such government directives showed disregard towards the post of SSP/SP (district police chiefs) and would demoralise the police.

In his letter, the DM has referred to a circular issued by principal secretary (home) dated May 9 in which it was stated that transfer or posting of any police station in charge by the district police chief must be done after written approval of the district magistrate as per the provisions of sections 6 and 524 of the Police Regulation Act.

You are the chief of your department at the district level. All the proposals will be approved by me as a district magistrate. It is important for us to ensure the government order’s compliance for people’s welfare,” Singh wrote. “Had the proposal reached him on time, people would have got the right message. This shows violation of the government order. In this situation, with great pain, I am returning this proposal without my approval,” he added.

When contacted, Singh told TOI, “On Friday, I received a letter about the transfers, but before that most of the inspectors had joined their duties at new places. The media persons also received information about the transfers before the letter came to me. In such circumstances, I observed that the order has no relevance, and hence I returned the letter to Noida SSP,” he said.

When asked about the status of transferred SHOs, the district magistrate said that “it is now for the Noida police chief to take a call”.

The Noida SSP transferred seven inspectors as police station in-charges, two in crime branch and one as head of Operation Pink. The transferred inspectors include Anil Kumar Shahi, Noida SSP’s Public Relationship Officer, who has been transferred to Sector 39 police station as its in-charge. K K Rana, earlier with the crime branch, was quick to post in a WhatsApp group that he has joined his duty as SHO Jarcha.

Noida SSP did not respond to repeated calls for a comment.