CM ‘promotes’ dual stand

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The state government appears to have been adopting double standards in promoting IPS officials.
The government, which effected promotions to 1994 bath officers strictly in accordance with the available vacancies in sanctioned cadre posts, is all set to flout the rule while promoting 1987 batch officers from Inspector General to Additional Director General of Police.

The government already empanelled eight officers of the 1987 batch for promotion and Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy is said to have given clear instructions to promote all officers at one go, irrespective of the vacancies. This is against the Centre’s recent directive not to promote all officers of a particular batch, be it in the IAS or IPS, but restrict the number to the available vacancies.

Sources said the government would issue orders in a day or two, effecting enmasse promotions to the 1987 batch officers, including V.K. Singh, T.A. Tripathi, Santosh Mehra, N.V. Surendra Babu, Satyanarain, B.L. Meena, M. Gopikrishna and A.R. Anuradha. Sources said the government indeed took up the promotion issue hurriedly on Tuesday as part of easing Special Investigation Team chief K. Srinivas Reddy out of ACB. The government sought to project that shifting of officials, after they were promoted, as a routine matter.

Though promotions were overdue, chief secretary Pankaj Dwivedi, apparently on instructions, convened a screening committee meeting only on Tuesday afternoon and cleared the promotion of Mr Srinivas Reddy, along with his other batch mates. The file was rushed to the Chief Minister at around 9 pm and it took almost three hours for the final orders to be issued as DGP V. Dinesh Reddy recommended transfer of some more officers. Sources said that by the time a final decision was taken, it was almost midnight.