One year up, Karnataka ex-IPS officer’s voluntary retirement scheme hangs fire

BENGALURU: The Karnataka government is yet to process the voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) of former Indian Police Service (IPS) officer and additional director general of police Bhaskar Rao more than one year after he applied for it in September 2021. Rao is the incumbent Vice President of Aam Admi Party (AAP), Karnataka. He had joined the party in April this year after quitting more than three decades of uniformed service. He was appointed as the Vice President (VP) of AAP, Karnataka in June.

While the reasons behind the delay in processing Rao’s VRS are not known, this has created a unique situation in the Karnataka IPS cadre with the upcoming vacancy in the post of the Director General of Police (DGP) following the superannuation of the DGP and Chief of Fire & Emergency Services, Home Guards, Civil Defence & State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) Amar Kumar Pandey on December 31. If in service, Rao would have been the senior-most ADGP and promoted in the upcoming vacancy but since he has quit the service, promotion of the next senior-most ADGP and the City Police Commissioner Pratap Reddy is a no-brainer. Reddy is a year junior to Rao and belongs to the 1991 batch of IPS. 

The departmental promotion committee (DPC) meeting for his promotion to the rank of DGP has been scheduled for December 14. In a scenario, where a senior officer’s VRS has been kept pending, will the government promote his junior?

“Rao’s VRS maybe processed before that. It maybe in the final stage of approval. Also, in the case of the pending VRS, the government may overlook Rao and promote Reddy,” said informed sources.
When asked, Rao told TNIE that “his VRS, for which he had applied in September last year, should be accepted any time soon. It is a matter of time”. 

‘No big changes likely in cadre’

Meanwhile, if promoted, Reddy will become the third Bengaluru City Police Commissioner holding the 
rank of DGP after his predecessors. Ajay Singh and Kamal Pant giving rise to the speculation that the government may upgrade the post of Bengaluru City Police Commissioner, which is currently an ADGP post to DGP rank.

But the recent cadre review by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has cleared the mist after it stated that there would be no major changes in the cadre. “There are, however, no talks on immediate change of guard in the Bengaluru city police,” added sources.