HC rejects petition seeking stay on ACPs' transfers

The High Court on Wednesday rejected the petition seeking to stay the transfer orders of two assistant commissioners of police (ACPs).

Hearing a petition by the two ACPs, G B Manjunath, of Jayanagar Sub-Division, and V Shekar, of Vijaynagar Sub-Division, the Division Bench comprising Justice N Kumar and Justice H S Kempanna dismissed the petition on the grounds that the Karnataka Police (Amendment) Act, 2012, had prescribed minimum one year tenure for the officers.

Citing the Supreme Court order in the Prakash Singh Vs Union of India, the duo had contended that a minimum tenure of two years for the police officers on field duty in the year 2006, has been fixed.

Served one year

The duo stated that since they had served just over one year in their places of postings, the transfer order was bad in the eye of law.

In the absence of a law governing the term of office, the Supreme Court had fixed the tenure for two years and directed the State government to bring out a legislation fixing the office tenure. The Karnataka government, accordingly, has framed a law, Justice Kumar said. “Every piece of legislation is deemed constitutionally valid until proved otherwise in a court of law. The petitioners have the option to challenge the validity of the amended Act,” he said.

Minimum tenure

The counsel for the petitioner, in his submission, said that the State government has tried to circumvent the apex court guidelines on transfer by fixing the minimum tenure of one year to field officers.

As many as 94 DySPs and 324 police inspectors were transferred on August 17 by means of two orders.

Aggrieved by this, the petitioners had moved the Karnataka Administrative Tribunal (KAT), which had rejected the application. Subsequently, the officers moved the High Court.