Commissioner of Police, Delhi


The Commissioner of Police, Delhi or Delhi Police Commissioner is the head of the Delhi Police, the Law enforcement agency of the 15 police districts of National Capital of India, Delhi.

Origins

In the year 1966, the Government of India constituted the Delhi Police Commission headed by Justice G.D. Khosla to go into the Problems faced by Delhi Police and it was on the basis of the Khosla Commission Report that the Delhi Police was reorganised. Four Police districts, namely, North, Central, South and New Delhi were constituted. The Delhi Police Commission also recommended the introduction of Police Commissioner System which was eventually adopted from 1 July 1978.
Following the recommendations of "Khosla Commission", Commissioner of Police system in Delhi, the capital of India was started in 1978, with J.N. Chaturvedi being appointed as the first Police Commissioner of Delhi. It replaced the earlier Inspector General of Police system, where the Inspector General of police would report to the Divisional Commissioner of Delhi, thus having a dual authority in effect. The Commissioner system brought an end to this dual authority as since then the appointed Commissioner of Police is of Director General of Police reports to the Chief Secretary.
The longest serving Commissioner of Delhi Police is Krishan Kant Paul who served for 42 months.

Incumbent Police Commissioner

The present Commissioner of Delhi Police is S. N. Shrivastava, a 1985 batch officer of AGMUT cadre, who took office on 01 March 2020.

Former Police Commissioners

#NameTook OfficeLeft Office
1J.N. ChaturvediJuly 1978January 1980
2P.S. BhinderJanuary 1980December 1981
3Bajrang LalDecember 1981April 1983
4S.C. TandonApril 1983November 1984
5S.S. JogNovember 1984April 1985
6Ved MarwahApril 1985April 1988
7Raja Vijay KaranApril 1988December 1990
8Arun BhagatDecember 1990February 1992
9M.B. KaushalFebruary 1992January 1995
10 Nikhil KumarJanuary 1995April 1997
11T.R. KakkarApril 1997May 1998
12V.N. SinghMay 1998June 1999
13Ajay Raj SharmaJuly 1999June 2002
14R.S. GuptaJuly 2002February 2004
15Krishan Kant PaulFebruary 2004July 2007
16Y.S. DadwalJuly 2007November 2010
17B.K. GuptaNovember 2010June 2012
18Neeraj KumarJune 2012July 2013
19Bhim Sain BassiJuly 2013February 2016
20Alok Kumar VermaFebruary 2016January 2017
21Amulya PatnaikFebruary 2017February 2020

Controversies

The issue of appointment of police commissioners of New Delhi, has not been without controversies. The most recent controversy was when a senior police officer Kiran Bedi was superseded to appoint her junior Dadwal as the Police Commissioner in July 2007. Bedi went on record saying that at a time, when the President of India as well as the chairperson of the ruling alliance UPA were women, it would have done a lot of good for country's image as well as for the upliftment of women if she had been appointed. She resigned soon after in protest, although her official line was that she wanted to devote more time to social work.

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