Centre, State, DGP get 3 weeks time to respond

HYDERABAD: Expressing unhappiness over the Union government, state government and director-general of police V Dinesh Reddy seeking four weeks’ time for filing their replies to the notices served by it on a petition filed by senior IPS officer P Gautam Kumar challenging Dinesh Reddy’s appointment as DGP, the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) on Tuesday granted all the three respondents three weeks’ time to file their replies. The matter will come up for hearing after three weeks.The appointment of Dinesh Reddy as DGP (HOPF) was challenged by principal secretary (home) P Gautam Kumar who made the state government, union government and Dinesh Reddy as respondents.Immediately after CAT members took up the matter, the respondents sought four weeks’ time to reply to the notices.The CAT members expressed their unhappiness at the respondents for not submitting their replies in response to the notices served to them earlier but granted them three weeks of time to file their replies and said that there would not be any further adjournment.Gautam Kumar challenged Dinesh Reddy’s appointment as head of police force alleging that the state government did not follow the Supreme Court guidelines given in Prakash Singh’s verdict.The state government is expected to send a list of DGP-cadre officers to the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) which will select three eligible officers for the state government to choose from.Dinesh Reddy was appointed as DGP (HOPF) by overlooking seniority of KR Nandan, P Gautam Kumar, Sivashankar, Umesh Kumar and Balwinder Singh.