Hyderabad: Their batchmates in the 1987 batch of Indian Police Service (IPS) are already serving as DGPs (Head of Police Force) in quite a few states while in the remaining states, they have been promoted to the rank of Director General (DG) long ago.
But the officers of the 1987 batch in Telangana state are being denied promotions for unknown reasons, with some indicating that it may be happening by design.
Sources said that the three 1987-batch IPS officers in Telangana state — V.K. Singh, Santosh Mehra and M. Gopi Krishna — have been awaiting promotion for the last two years but the state government is sitting over the file.
In Andhra Pradesh too, the 1987 batch IPS officers are already DG rank officers and the state government has gone ahead and made even 1989 batch officers as DGs — which has ended up in the neighbouring state having a total of nine DG rank officers, something unheard of in the country.
They have written letters to the government citing the position in various other states, but to no avail. They continue as additional DGP rank officers.
Telangana state already has four DG rank officers — Ms Tejdeep Kaur Menon (1983 batch), Mr M. Mahendar Reddy (1986), Mr Rajiv Trivedi (1986) and Mr T. Krishna Prasad (1986). In case, the 1987 batch were to be promoted, then the total number of DG rank officers would go up to seven.
In Telangana state, the government has chosen to promote even 1987 and 1988 batch IAS officers but not 1987 batch IPS officers — something that has raised many eyebrows in bureaucratic circles.
The DGP of Jammu and Kashmir Dilbagh Singh, Bihar DGP Gupteshwar Pandey and Punjab DGP Dinkar Gupta are all from the 1987 batch while their batchmates continue to be Additional DGPs in Telangana state.
According to rules, Telangana state can have four DG rank officials (two in cadre posts and two ex-cadre posts for DG rank). All along, respective state governments have promoted officers to the DG rank even though there was no vacancy and later got it approved from the Centre.
Sources say that one of the possible reasons is that there is no “heavyweight”' among the 1987 batch IPS officers in Telangana state and therefore, the Government is not interested in promoting them. Another reason being given is that if there are more number of DGs in the state, more claimants for the top post of DGP (HoPF), which may not be to the liking of some officers.
