5 min readDehradunMar 17, 2026 07:00 AM IST
Two Inspector-General designates of the Indian Police Service from the Uttarakhand cadre have moved the High Court seeking the quashing of the order that appointed them as officers to the post of Deputy IGs on Central deputation, calling the move “mala fide and abuse of power”.
While hearing the petitions of IPS officers Neeru Garg, a 2005-batch officer, and Arun Mohan Joshi, a 2006-batch officer, the Bench of Chief Justice Manoj Kumar Gupta and Justice Subhash Upadhyay asked the Centre and the state government to place on record the said orders.
Joshi’s petition said that he was unaware of the fact that he was being proposed by the state government for deputation and, owing to the lack of empanelment, he would not be posted in the rank of IG, but that of a DIG of the Border Service Force, a rank lower than his. Questioning the relieving order of the Director General of Police, Uttarakhand, he challenged it and the short span in which his deputation was arranged.
Joshi is an IIT Roorkee graduate who was promoted as IG in 2024 and currently holds the charge of IG, CID, while Garg is currently the IG (Fire).
The petition says that the officer did not show willingness for deputation and was never informed by the police department or the state government that his name had been forwarded by them to the Government of India for Deputation. When he became aware, he approached the government, which, through its January 4, 2025 order, withdrew the proposal with his name. Garg has also claimed the same in her petition.
On February 3, 2025, the Government of India took cognizance of the letter dated and wrote that the competent authority has approved the cancellation by appointment of the petitioners as Deputy Inspector General. However, the petitioners were debarred from Central Deputation and foreign assignments and consultancies for five years under the provisions of Para 17 of the IPS Tenure Policy.
Joshi and Garg further claimed that while this debarment was in effect, the government of Uttarakhand proceeded to forward their names again for central deputation. On March 5, 2026, the Government of India issued an order appointing the officers on central deputation.
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Joshi said in the petition, “The petitioner apprehends that his firm approach in handling such matters (investigations) may not have been entirely acceptable in certain quarters and may have contributed to the developments that have culminated in the present situation.”
“…That the subsequent forwarding of the petitioner’s name for central deputation in the aforesaid circumstances clearly reveals the mala fide intent underlying the action of the State Government. Having failed to remove the petitioner from service within the State cadre through any lawful means, the State Government appears to have adopted the device of pushing the petitioner out of the State by again forwarding his name for deputation, despite the subsisting five-year debarment”.
The action has the effect of not only banishing the petitioner from the state cadre “but also humiliating him by placing him on deputation to a post of Deputy Inspector General in BSF, which is lower than the petitioner’s substantive rank of Inspector General,” the petition says.
“The said action is manifestly arbitrary, contrary to the earlier stand taken by the State Government itself in its letter dated January 4, 2025, and constitutes a clear abuse of administrative power,” it said.
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Meanwhile, on Monday, the Additional Solicitor General appearing for the Government of India said that the debarment order was cancelled on March 5, 2026, when the officers were appointed on central deputation.
Joshi has claimed that the order was not a routine administrative decision but is part of a series of actions taken against the petitioner, beginning with his abrupt removal from the supervision of a CBCID investigation shortly after this HC recorded its appreciation of the petitioner’s approach in an order in December last year.
“The forwarding of the petitioner’s name for deputation despite a subsisting five-year debarment and the consequent appointment to a lower rank clearly demonstrate that the impugned action has been taken for extraneous considerations and is liable to be set aside by this Hon’ble Court,” he said.
The petition also said that immediately after the GoI order on March 5, the state government “proceeded with unusual and unwarranted haste to relieve the petitioner from the state cadre”, by an order on March 6, granting approval for his central deputation and directed that he be relieved from the state government with immediate effect.
