Office-going commuters in the Andheri-Churchgate-Andheri local train are likely to find the new Maharashtra Director General of Police as their fellow traveller soon. For years, Sanjay Pandey had stopped using his official car and switched to train to commute to and from his home.
His home, too, was not an official accommodation as the 1986-batch officer had refused it in protest against being repeatedly “sidelined†in postings.
On Friday, when he was given the additional charge of the Maharashtra DGP, it was a penultimate victory for the officer, who is praised by many politicians as an honest and upright individual.
Prior to this, Pandey had been cooling his heels for years as the DGP Home Guards, a non-executive post. That too had been taken away from him when the government last month decided to remove Param Bir Singh as the Mumbai Commissioner of Police, and put him in charge of the Home Guards.
Pandey was pushed further to the margins as the DG Maharashtra State Security Corporation. He protested. Few would have imagined then that within days, he would get additional charge as the DGP Maharashtra, a post for which the government seemed determined not to consider him at all despite his seniority.
Pandey was given the assignment a few days after being asked to carry out a probe against Singh.
However, Pandey’s ultimate victory will come only when he is appointed the DGP with full charge, a post that he had hoped to be considered for in December 2020, when Subodh Jaiswal stepped down midway to take an assignment at the Centre. Hemant Nagrale succeeded Jaiswal, much to Pandey’s disappointment.
After Nagrale was appointed the Mumbai Police commissioner, Rajnish Seth was given additional charge as the DGP. Pandey’s protest at being humiliated once again seemed to have gone unheard, until Friday.
Getting additional charge improves an officer’s prospects for being included in the Union Public Service Commission’s panel of three candidates that it will send back to the Maharashtra government, from the set of candidates the state administration sends to it.
The government must choose its DGP from the three candidates.
At a time when the Maharashtra home department is facing a credibility crisis, this IIT Kanpur graduate’s clean image may help clear the debris of the Sachin Waze controversy.
Pandey’s non-partisan policing in the post-riot Dharavi in the 1990s earned him several admirers and also some powerful enemies among politicians.
While investigating the cobbler scam as the DCP of the Economic Offences wing in 1998, Pandey got his first taste of being sidelined.
With the scam trail allegedly leading to some politicians’ doors, he found himself transferred to Jalna mid-stream. He later got Central deputation and was attached to the Prime Minister’s security unit.
But despite keeping him on the margins, the Maha Vikas Aghadi government appears to have trusted him to carry out at least two inquiries against senior police officers.
When the government did not act on his recommendations in those reports, Pandey felt he had been “usedâ€.
Now that he has been entrusted with a third inquiry, there is a chance that he may come up as the DGP with full charge.
