Lucknow, Jan 7 (IANS): The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on Thursday reserved for January 11 its order on a plea against the appointment of Javeed Ahmed as the new Uttar Pradesh Police chief.

The bench of Justice S.N. Shukla and Justice Ashok Pal Singh reserved its order after hearing state Advocate General Vijay Bahadur Singh, who objected to the maintainability of the petition filed by social activist Nutan Thakur on the ground that quo warranto cannot be filed by an outsider.

On Wednesday, a bench of Justice A.P. Sahi and Justice A.R. Masudi said the allegations made in the petition were related to the appointment of the director general of police, which was clearly a service matter.

A 1984-batch officer of the Indian Police Services, Javeed Ahmed was appointed as the new DGP on January 1. Ahmed succeeded Jagmohan Yadav, who retired a day earlier. 

The petitioner said Ahmad was appointed by overlooking 13 IPS officers of the UP cadre senior to him, including four who are on central deputation. 

This, the petitioner pleaded, was against the Supreme Court ruling in 'Prakash Singh vs Union of India' case that the DGP shall be selected from amongst the three most senior officers of police department.

Such officers should be empanelled for promotion by the Union Public Service Commission on the basis of their length of service, very good service record and range of experience for heading the police force, the apex court had ruled.