N Achutha Rao is New Karnataka Police Chief

BANGALORE, Jul 6 (TOI): The state government on Tuesday hurriedly appointed N Achutha Rao as state DG&IGP, fearful of the contempt petition filed before the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT). The appointment was done in such haste that even home minister R Ashoka was not aware of the development, and the move took the administration by complete surprise.

Rao's appointment came after D V Guruprasad, seniormost IPS officer of the state, filed a contempt plea before CAT on Monday, questioning the delay on the part of the state government in the selection of the new DG&IGP.

The CAT bench had served a contempt notice to chief secretary S V Ranganath, asking him to appear before it on Wednesday to explain the delay.

In all probability, the government wanted to avoid a repeat of the J Vasudevan kind of embarrassment -- during H D Deve Gowda's tenure as chief minister in 1995, Vasudevan, a senior IAS officer, was imprisoned for a month following the court's direction in a contempt case.

Afraid of what could happen on Wednesday, chief minister B S Yeddyurappa convened a meeting involving Ashoka and Ranganath on Tuesday, and decided to appoint Rao. Sources maintained that Ranganath rushed to the CM's residence in the afternoon, fearing a similar direction from CAT.

In the first week of May, CAT had directed the state government to appoint a regular DG&IGP by May 30. In his petition, Guruprasad had argued that the state government, which appointed the second seniormost IPS officer S T Ramesh as in-charge DGP on January 31, ignoring his seniority, was deliberately delaying the appointment of a regular DG&IGP.

GOVT IGNORES UPSC LIST

The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) had reportedly not included the name of Ramesh in the list of eligible candidates. Sources said UPSC has sent the names of Guruprasad and Rao DGP(CID) to the state government in a sealed envelope. But the Yeddyurappa administration was not interested to appointing either Guruprasad or Rao for the top job. They wanted Ramesh to continue as in-charge chief till his retirement this month-end. Irked by the delay, Guruprasad filed a contempt petition before CAT. In a toss-up between Guruprasad and Rao, the selection committee headed by Yeddyurappa chose Rao.

WHO IS ACHUTHA RAO?

Born in November 1951, Rao is a 1976-batch IPS officer. A native of Andhra Pradesh, he is a post-graduate in Science. Rao served as Bangalore City police commissioner, when H D Kumaraswamy was chief minister. He headed the state internal security wing before being posted as DG(CID).