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The Central Administrative Tribunal set aside the appointment of R R Girish Kumar as the director general of police of Andhra Pradesh on Thursday.
Acting on a petition filed by S S P Yadav and A K Mohanty, predecessors of Girish Kumar, the Hyderabad bench of CAT directed the state government to constitute a selection committee to appoint a new DGP in two weeks.
The committee would select a panel of three members, who in turn will choose the DGP in accordance with rules duly considering the candidature of all the officers in DGP grade.
The state government should keep in view the observations made by the tribunal, the order said.
The tribunal also ordered the government to release the due amounts to both the senior IPS officers as they were transferred to low pay scale posts.
Yadav, an Indian Police Service officer of 1974 batch, approached the CAT in October last year challenging the appointment of Kumar, a 1976-batch IPS officer as the state DGP.
Yadav was transferred as managing director of the state-owned Road Transport Corporation.
Irked by the government's move, he filed a petition in the CAT that "Girish Kumar was illegally promoted as DGP with apex pay scale".
Kumar, till then, was holding the post of additional director general and was promoted to facilitate him for DGP post.
Similarly another DGP rank officer, Mohanty also moved CAT, alleging that he was removed from the post without any valid reason.
He alleged that he was posted in a low pay scale rank.
He is now the chairman of the State Road Safety Authority.
The tribunal, while quashing the government orders appointing Kumar as DGP of the state, also said that "the appointment in apex scale is illegal and arbitrary".
In case of Mohanty's petition, the tribunal said the DGP post he held covered only election period and hence he cannot claim the benefits of Supreme Court's direction regarding the selection and transfer of DGP.
The tribunal said that Kumar is eligible to apex scale only from December 10, 2009, when the fifth post of DGP was sanctioned by the central government.
The tribunal observed that the post of DGP is "promotional post" and the government has the power of transferring the DGP to any other cadre or ex-cadre post in the DGP cadre without affecting his legal and constitutional rights.