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The newly appointed Commissioner of Police, Delhi, Rakesh Asthana has replied to the Delhi High Court in a public interest litigation (PIL) challenging his appointment, submitting that "the two organisations namely Common Cause and Centre for Public Interest Litigations (CPIL) have filed petitions challenging his appointment either out of some vendetta which is unknown to him" or is "at the behest of some undisclosed individual/ rival/interest."

Asthana has submitted that “this personal vendetta or a proxy war is projected under the cloak of public interest litigation”.

Asthana has alleged that the two organizations are “professional public interest litigants and exist only for filing litigations as the only way of public service.”

Asthana has further stated that the organisations are infact run by one or two individuals only who enjoy deep and pervasive control over them, who have in the recent past "started (a) barrage of selective actions against him in pursuance of which proceedings are being consistently filed against him by these two organisations, while outside court people having control of the said organisation(s) are spearheading a malicious campaign against him."

The affidavit has been filed in a plea challenging the appointment of Rakesh Asthana as Commissioner of Police, Delhi.

Yesterday the centre also filed an affidavit stating that Rakesh Asthana was made the Commissioner of Police Delhi by the Central Government "in public interest."

It was submitted that the prime consideration for the same was that New Delhi as the capital of the country has been witnessing diverse and extremely challenging situations of public order/law and order situation/policing issues which not only had national security implications but also international/cross border implications.

"As such, a compelling need was felt by the Central Government to appoint a person as a head of the police force of Delhi, who had diverse and vast experience of heading a large police force in a large State having diverse political as well as public order problem/experience of working and supervising Central Investigating Agency(s) as well as para-military forces", the centre stated.

The division bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh had in the previous hearing issued notice on the plea and also allowed the intervention application of Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) alleging that the main petition is a copy paste of CPIL’s plea in the Supreme Court.

The petition filed by one Sadre Alam sought quashing of the order/communication dated Jul 27 of the Appointment Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) granting inter-cadre deputation and extension of service to Asthana.

Filed through Adv. BS Bagga, the petition said that the impugned orders are in clear and blatant breach of the directions passed by the Supreme Court of India in Prakash Singh case as Asthana did not have a minimum residual tenure of six months at the time of his appointment as Commissioner of Police since he was to retire within 4 days. 

Further, no Union Public Services Commission (UPSC) panel was formed for the appointment of the Delhi Police Commissioner and the criteria of having a minimum tenure of two years had been ignored, it alleged.

The petitioner had submitted that “the post of Commissioner of Police in Delhi is akin to the post of DGP of a State and he is the Head of Police Force for the NCT of Delhi and therefore, the directions concerning the appointment to the post of DGP passed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India in Prakash Singh case (supra) had to be followed by the Central Government while making the impugned appointment. However, the same have been given a complete go-by the Central Government”.

The petition thus sought a direction to the Union Government to initiate fresh steps for appointing the Commissioner of Police, Delhi, strictly in accordance with the directions issued by the  Supreme Court of India in the Prakash Singh case viz., (2006) 8 SCC 1,(2019) 4 SCC 13and (2019) 4 SCC 1 of an officer of the AGMUT cadre.

Case Title: Sadre Alam vs UOI