Senior cops upset as top guns now under IAS man junior to them

MUMBAI: A day after chief minister Devendra Fadnavis appointed seasoned bureaucrat K P Bakshi to head the home department, a debate raged in the corridors of power as several high-ranking IPS officers led by director general Sanjeev Dayal are senior to him.
“Dayal will be reporting to Bakshi, who is five years junior to him,” a senior IPS officer said on Thursday. “It will create protocol and administrative problems.”
Bakshi is from the 1982 batch of the IAS, Dayal from the 1977 batch of the IPS.
Dayal is followed by ACB director Pravin Dixit (1977), police housing MD Arup Patnaik (1979), home guards DG Ahmed Javed, security corporation MD K P Raghuwanshi and Thane police commissioner Vijay Kamble (all 1980), and Pune police commissioner Satish Mathur, city police commissioner Rakesh Maria and additional DG (prisons) Meera Borwankar (all 1981).
Even chief secretary Swadheen Kshatriya (1980 batch) is junior to Dayal, Dixit, Patnaik, Javed, Raghuwanshi and Kamble.
“The home secretary writes the confidential report of the DGP,” the IPS officer said, requesting anonymity. “It will be wrong for the government to allow it.”
Former police commissioner M N Singh said the development may cause unease in the IPS but it was in the interests of the state for the DGP and the home secretary to get along.
A former DGP felt the IPS association should take up the issue with Fadnavis. “If there are no senior IAS officers, then government should appoint senior-most IPS officer as the home secretary,” the veteran said.
Anand Kulkarni, a 1982 batch IAS officer was on Thursday appointed additional chief secretary (public works) in place of the retired Shyamal Mukherjee. Kulkarni is the first IAS head of the PWD. So far, the convention was to appoint the most senior chief engineer.