Karnataka: Legislators' hand in cop transfers

Bengaluru: Police transfers in Karnataka are not reportedly carried out by the Police Establishment Board (PEB), which has been constituted under direction from the Supreme Court, but are executed on the recommendations of legislators. In his alleged last interview to a local television channel, former deputy superintendent of police M.K. Ganapathi had reportedly stated that on two occasions in his career, he had met local MLAs for his transfer and on both occasions the politicians had allegedly obliged.

In the TV interview before he committed suicide in a private lodge in Madikeri on July 7 last year, the late officer, narrating his career, had allegedly stated that he was transferred from Mangaluru to Mysuru and then to Bengaluru.

In Bengaluru, there was a vacancy in Yeshwanthpur and he had approached the local MLA Ashwath Narayan for a posting there. “He (MLA) said that it will be done in a week’s time… and he wrote me a letter… I collected it from him and then I got the posting there,” alleged Ganapathi. On second occasion, he again alleged that he swapped places with Purushottam –his batch mate and the then inspector of police, Madiwala. “He had completed (tenure of) two years and two months and so had I (PI, Yeshwanthpur). We wanted to swap places. I told him that ‘you introduce your MLA to me and Ill introduce my MLA to you…Then we did the changing… I went to Madiwala and he came to Yeshwanthpur,” the former DySP allegedly stated in his interview.

The late officer’s alleged statements corroborate with the claim made by the constable-turned RTI activist and president of Akhila Karnataka Police Maha Sangha, V. Shashidhar, who in his public interest litigation (PIL) in the High Court, had stated that though the state under direction from the Supreme Court (in the Prakash Singh and others vs Union of India) had constituted the PEB as per Section 20B of the amended Karnataka Police Act, the Board had negligible role in police transfer and postings and it was the politicians who were calling the shots. He had alleged that the CM ordered the transfer and postings of police officers on the recommendations of MLAs, MLCs and local corporators. Former DySp Kudligi Anupama Shenoy had publicly spoken about the “minute” politics and political interference in police administration, transfer and postings.