SC junks pleas against appointment of Punjab DGP Dinkar Gupta
Darpan News Desk IANS, 16 Nov, 2021 12:49 PM
New Delhi, Nov 16 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Tuesday junked petitions against the Punjab and Haryana High Court order, which upheld the appointment of Dinkar Gupta as Punjab Director General of Police.
A bench comprising Justices L. Nageswara Rao, Sanjiv Khanna and B.R. Gavai dismissed the petitions filed by IPS officers Siddharth Chattopadhyay and Mohammad Mustafa, challenging February 7, 2019, order appointing Gupta as the Punjab DGP.
The top court had reserved the order in the matter in September this year. The detailed judgment in the matter is expected to be uploaded on the top court's website later in the day.
Additional Solicitor General Aman Lekhi, representing the Union Public Service Commission had submitted that draft guidelines, 2009 were legal, binding and in conformity with the Prakash Singh judgment.
The counsel, representing Chattopadhyay, had argued that his client was considered unfit, since Suresh Arora, the then DGP being the ex officio member of the empanelment committee for the selection of the post of DGP had reason to be biased against him. Mustafa's counsel had argued that the appointment process for Gupta was tailor-made.
According to sources, Amarinder Singh will convene a meeting of leaders close to him in a few days to consider the formation of his new party, which will include all the leaders of the anti-Sidhu faction.
The arrested persons have been identified as Abdul Khalid, Shriram Chaurasia, Zishan Ahmad, Vikas Kesarwani and Krishna Kumar. Inspector (Kareli) Anupam Sharma said the arrested persons had sold SIM cards to law-breakers at high prices after creating fake IDs.
The ex-CM of Punjab recalled that Rawat himself had publicly stated after meeting him that he was satisfied by his government's track record on the 2017 poll promises.
It is learnt that Channi in his first meeting with the Prime Minister after becoming chief minister of Punjab requested that the Centre take back its decision to postpone paddy procurement by 10 days. The Centre has postponed the procurement of paddy by 10 days due to rain in Punjab and Haryana. Earlier the procurement was supposed to start from October 1 but now it will start from October 11.
Scotching speculation to the contrary, former Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Thursday made it clear he was not joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) but had no intention of continuing in the Congress either, which he said was going downhill with senior leaders completely ignored and not given a voice.
The meeting lasted for over two hours and the issues raised by Sidhu will be put before the Cabinet on October 4, sources in the party said.After the meeting at Punjab Bhavan, where AICC observer Harish Chaudhary was also present, both Channi and Sidhu left the meeting venue without talking to the media.
