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.
She reached Chandigarh, the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana, by air in the morning from where she headed straight to her daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's cottage located amid forests of pine and cedar on the suburbs of the Himachal Pradesh capital.
Channi took oath of office along with his two deputies -- one a Jat Sikh and another belonging to the Hindu community -- at a simple ceremony here in the Punjab capital that was delayed for 20 minutes owing to the late arrival of party leader Rahul Gandhi.
Jasbir Singh Virk, president of Bhartiya Sikh Sangthan, has underlined the need to intensify the ongoing farmers' agitation and said that there was a need to shore up strength at the Delhi borders.
Punjab BJP President Ashwani Sharma told IANS that to control infighting in its party state unit, the Congress leadership made Channi ji (Charanjit Singh Channi) the Punjab Chief Minister but insulted the Dalit community by not allowing him to lead the party in the upcoming state Assembly polls.
The government and drug controller's office will have to take a decision on the third booster dose based on data and cases as times goes on and including how effective the vaccine is on the Delta virus variant, he added.
