Madras High Court Dismisses Plea Challenging Appointment of IPS Officer G Vankatraman As Ad-Hoc Director General Of Police

The bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G Arul Murugan orally remarked that some arrangements had to be made when the DGP demitted office following his superannuation in August 31^st 2025. The court also noted that the Supreme Court, on September 8, had directed the UPSC to expeditiously consider sending recommendations for the appointment of the Director General of Police of Tamil Nadu. The court thus opined that the present petition was baseless.

Though the court also considered imposing costs on the petitioner, it refrained from doing so and said that the court would take a strict stand against such public interest litigations. The bench also remarked that a lot of judicial time was spent on such petitions.

Background

Advocate A Varadaraj had filed the petition alleging that the State Government had not followed the directions issued by the Supreme Court with respect to the appointment of a permanent Director General of Police/Head of Police Force for the State of Tamil Nadu and appointing Venkataraman as the ad-hoc DGP.

Highlighting the Supreme Court's guidelines in the Prakash Singh v. Union of India case, the petitioner submitted that no state should even conceive of the idea of appointing any person on the post of Director General of Police on an acting basis since there is no such post.

As per the 2018 order of the Supreme Court,

(a) All the States shall send their proposals in anticipation of the vacancies to the Union Public Service Commission, well in time at least three months prior to the date of retirement of the incumbent on the post of Director General of Police;

(b) The Union Public Service Commission shall prepare the panel as per the directions of this Court in the judgment in Prakash Singh's case(supra) and intimate to the States;

(c) The State shall immediately appoint one of the persons from the panel prepared by the Union Public Service Commission;

(d) None of the States shall ever conceive of the idea of appointing any person on the post of Director General of Police on acting basis for there is no concept of acting Director General of Police as per the decision in Prakash Singh's case(supra);

(e) An endeavour has to be made by all concerned to see that the person who was selected and appointed as the Director General of Police continues despite his date of superannuation. However, the extended term beyond the date of superannuation should be a reasonable period. We say so as it has been brought to our notice that some of the States have adopted a practice to appoint the Director General of Police on the last date of retirement as a consequence of which the person continues for two years after his date of superannuation. Such a practice will not be in conformity with the spirit of the direction;

(f) Direction No.(c) should be considered by the Union Public Service Commission to mean that the persons are to be empanelled, as far as practicable, from amongst the people within the zone of consideration who have at least two years of service. Merit and seniority should be given due weightage.

(g) Any legislation/rule framed by any of the States or the Central Government running counter to the direction shall remain in abeyance to the aforesaid extent

The petitioner submitted that the state had failed to forward the list of eligible officers to the UPSC at least 3 months prior to the date of accrual of vacancy. It was submitted that the State's arbitrary disregard for the duties was an egregious violation of the mandate set forth by the Supreme Court. He argued that the State action was not just violative of Article 142 of the Constitution but also violative of the principles enshrined under Article 14 of the Constitution, and it reeked of political expediency.

The petitioner had thus argued that the purposeful circumvention of the procedure by the State was a deliberate attempt to install a politically expedient candidate instead of a duly selected, eligible candidate from the top 3 senior-most eligible officers.

Case Title: R Varadaraj v. The Government of Tamil Nadu and Others

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 304

Case No: WP No. 34080 of 2025