Speculation has started about who will be the new head of the police department in Uttar Pradesh. Will the state get a permanent DGP or the Yogi Adityanath government would prefer to go ahead with the acting police chief? DGP Prashant Kumar is retiring on May 31, so there are many discussions as to who will take his place and handle the police team in Uttar Pradesh. But the Home Department officials are silent on all these questions raising speculations that the government will once again ignore the laid procedure to select the police chief and will go appointing someone as ‘Acting DGP’ ignoring the seniority criteria. Interestingly, speculations are also high that Yogi Adityanath might surprise everyone by giving the state its first woman police head.
Three DG rank officers are retiring at the end of May. These include DGP Prashant Kumar, DG Jail PV Ramasastri and DG Telecom Sanjay M Tarde. After this, there will be a change in the seniority list of IPS officers. After Prashant Kumar’s retirement, the names of many contenders are coming up. Daljit Singh Chaudhary’s name is at the top among them. Apart from these, Alok Sharma and Rajiv Krishna are also considered strong contenders for the top post.
Though Krishna is at the forefront of the claim for the DGP post but he is at number 15 in the order of seniority at present. There are many other DG ranks above him. These include DG Power Corporation MK Bashal, DG Training Tilottama Verma.
Shafi Ahsan Rizvi of 1989 batch is on central deputation, whose chances of returning to UP are remote. DG Fire Service Aditya Mishra of 1989 batch is retiring in June 2025.
Sandeep Salunke of the 1990 batch has been on side posting since returning from central deputation. Daljit Singh Chaudhary of 1990 batch is handling the responsibility of DG BSF on central deputation. Renuka Mishra of 90 batch is waiting for posting since March 2024 while BK Maurya, of the 90 batch, is retiring in July. The government can also give a chance to DG Power Corporation MK Bashal. His retirement is in 2026. Caste equations are also in his favour.
The name of DG Training Tilottama Verma is also included in the list of contenders for the new DGP of UP. Her service period is of more than six months. If the state government gives her a chance, then for the first time in the state a woman an IPS will be the DGP. Tilottama has also been posted in the CBI for a long time. Her husband, Ashish Gupta, is also an IPS of UP cadre and his name is at the top in the seniority list. However, he applied for VRS last month. After this, there are two more officers, who are above Rajiv Krishna. Out of these, Alok Sharma is handling the responsibility of DG SPG.
There is little chance of his return. At the same time, Piyush Anand is handling the responsibility of DG NDRF at the Centre. However, after the retirement of three DG-level officers in May, ADG PHQ Anand Swaroop will also become DG and will be in the race for the post of DGP.
It may be mentioned that the Supreme Court, including the then Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, has explicitly prohibited the appointment of acting DGPs and mandated that only permanent DGPs, selected from a vetted list by the Union Public Service Commission, should head the police force. The state government, however, continues this practice following the abrupt removal of 1987 batch IPS officer Mukul Goyal from the DGP post on May 11, 2022. Goyal was removed before his superannuation in February 2024 amid allegations of inaction and disengagement. Since Goyal’s removal, Prashant Kumar has become the fourth consecutive acting DGP in Uttar Pradesh, following predecessors Devendra Singh Chauhan, RK Vishwakarma, and Vijay Kumar.
Last year in October, the UP Cabinet also cleared a proposal to form its own selection committee to appoint the DGP, selecting from among officers who have a tenure of more than six months left and based on their credentials and service records. At that time, since Prashant Kumar had more than six months left for his retirement, speculations ran high that the move was made to appoint him as full time DGP.
However, as that proposal failed to take any concrete shape, Kumar continued as acting DGP and will now retire in this month. Sources said that so far the
government made no move to send a panel of names to the UPSC committee to select the DGP so it is likely that the state would once more get an acting DGPat the helm.
