Interestingly, earlier this year in one of the major administrative decisions, the Maharashtra government had decided not to effect the transfer of its police personnel during the financial year 20-21. In an order issued in regard, it was mentioned that the decision was taken to ensure continuity of operations, especially continuity in the measures taken by the various departments to contain the spread of coronavirus. The order further said that transfer of any policeman including officers should not be carried out in any police unit in the state.
Fast forward to September and the Maharashtra Government on September 17 transferred over 50 IPS officers, while the government order specified that 41 of the officers had been allotted new postings, the remaining officers had not been given postings yet.
Earlier in July, the Maharashtra Home Department issued an order for the transfer of 10 Deputy Commissioners of Police (DCPs) in Mumbai. However, three days after the order was passed, Maharashtra Home Minister apprised of the order being revoked.
Posting of 19 senior IPS officers
The latest has it that Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray is sitting on the posting order of 19 senior IPS officers. It is openly speculated that some of the officers among these 19 are responsible for giving Mumbai police the image it has garnered lately in the case of Sushant Singh Rajput death case.
The Maharashtra CM shifted as many as 40 officers on September 2 and another 25 officers on September 17. Among the most significant shuffle have been those of Deven Bharti, IPS, and home department's Principal Secretary (special) Amitabh Gupta, IPS.
While Bharti is the officer of the ADG level who headed the Anti-Terrorism Squad on September 2, Amitabh Gupta will be the new police commissioner of Pune. It must be noted that Gupta was in the news after he gave travel permission to brothers Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan, of the Yes Bank and Punjab and Maharashtra cooperative bank scams.
Before the big transfer lists came out, the Maharashtra government had set and extended the deadline for the reshuffle of its IPS officers as many as three times. It was reported that a list of officers to be transferred had been compiled after a meeting of senior leaders.
