SC to Hear Plea Against Asthana's Appointment as Delhi Police Chief on 5 Aug

The petition has PM Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Ministry of Home Affairs as respondents.

Rakesh Asthana.

(Photo: PTI)

The Supreme Court on Thursday, 5 August, will hear a plea challenging the appointment of Rakesh Asthana as the Delhi Police Commissioner as per a petition filed by lawyer ML Sharma.

The petition has Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Ministry of Home Affairs as respondents.

Asthana's appointment has been challenged on the basis of the 2018 order by the Supreme Court (Prakash Singh vs Union of India) that the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) should only consider officials with two years of service left, as much as possible.

What the Plea Says

According to the petition, Asthana's appointment came just days before his retirement on 31 July, which gave him an extension of one year.

"That respondent no 1 is the head of the ACC (Appointments Committee of the Cabinet) and respondent no 2 is the ministry of home ministry who jointly decided and done impugned appointment against the judgement of the Hon’ble Supreme court. Hence they are party to this for contempt of court (sic)," the plea said.

"In the present case impugn appointment is not only willful denial of the judgment of the supreme court but also has been done knowingly and deliberately to interfere with or obstruct the administration of justice. Therefore this Hon’ble court shall take contempt of court (crl) against the respondents," it added.

The Appointment of Rakesh Asthana

Asthana, a 1984-batch IPS officer of the Gujarat cadre, was appointed the Delhi Police Commissioner on 27 July.

He had been serving as the Director General (DG) of the Border Security Force (BSF) since August last year.

In 2018, Asthana was booked by the CBI for allegedly receiving bribes from middlemen to give relief to a businessman being probed by him. He was also involved in a tussle with his superior Alok Verma to whom he was a deputy.

The government had then sent Asthana and Verma on forced leave amid allegations and counter-allegations.However, the CBI had later given a clean chit to Asthana. Asthana had headed the Special Task Force to look into the Godhra train burning case in 2002 while Modi was the chief minister of the state.