Centre asks Supreme Court to void Jharkhand’s DGP rules under Prakash Singh directions

The news

New Delhi, October 7. The Union government has asked the Supreme Court to declare illegal Jharkhand’s 2025 regulation for selecting its Director General of Police (DGP), The Economic Times reports. It filed an interlocutory application, a request within a pending case, in the Prakash Singh case. It objects to Tadasha Mishra’s appointment on December 30, 2025, a day before she was due to retire, after the State amended its regulation on December 29 to drop the rule of at least six months’ residual service. It also challenges Anurag Gupta’s appointment on February 2, 2025, with about three months left. Its core charge: a State cannot claim the two-year tenure while departing from the selection procedure. A Bench headed by CJI Surya Kant agreed to list it on Thursday. Amicus Raju Ramachandran had already reported a violation, per LiveLaw.

Static syllabus linkage

1. Police is a State subject led by an All India Service. Entries 1 and 2 of the State List place “public order” and “police” with the States, many of whose police laws still follow the Police Act, 1861. The DGP, however, comes from the Indian Police Service, recruited through the UPSC under the All India Services Act, 1951, which gives the Centre a stake in how its officers are chosen.
2. Prakash Singh (2006) set seven directions; later orders closed loopholes. They require a State Security Commission, a DGP chosen from three senior-most officers empanelled by the UPSC with a minimum two-year tenure, fixed tenure for field officers, separate investigation and law-and-order wings, a Police Establishment Board, Police Complaints Authorities and a National Security Commission. Per LiveLaw, 2018 and 2019 orders barred acting DGPs and required six months’ residual service. The Soli Sorabjee committee drafted a Model Police Act, 2006.

Why UPSC loves this

1. Police reform joins two GS papers. GS2 covers “separation of powers between various organs”, GS3 “various security forces and agencies and their mandate”; a court running police appointments touches both.

Analysis

1. Lens — Centre and States: the Union polices a State subject through a court decree. The Centre cannot normally tell a State whom to appoint, since police is in List II; here it relies on directions binding all States. States call the directions a stopgap until they legislate. The sound view: rule-making is the State’s right, but a rule changed to suit one officer is tailoring.
2. Tenure without neutral selection turns protection into patronage. Tenure lets a DGP resist pressure only if entry was neutral, through a UPSC panel. Appointing an officer a day before retirement turns tenure into a two-year extension granted by the government, buying loyalty rather than independence.
3. Two decades of court-made police reform show its limits. Directions without legislation produce compliance in form and endless applications. The counter-view: without the Court, nothing would have moved. The durable fix is State laws with panels and tenure in statute.

Administrator's brainstorm