My tenure as police commissioner was very short: Neeraj Kumar

New Delhi, July 24: Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar, who retires at the end of this month, today favoured a fixed tenure of at least two years for the head of the 80,000-strong force, saying his 13-month long stint at the helm of affairs was "very short".

He rued that the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court on tenure of police chiefs have not been followed. "Thirteen months is a very short time. It should be at least two years as laid down by the Supreme Court," Kumar told PTI.

Asked whether he could not implement his plans to modernise the force due to the short tenure, he retorted, "How does it matter now? These are Supreme Court guidelines but have not been implemented."

At present, Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Defence Secretary, Cabinet Secretary, Intelligence Bureau chief, Director of Enforcement Directorate, CBI chief and RAW chief have a fixed two-year tenure.

In the last one decade, Delhi had five Police Commissioners out of which Kumar's tenure has been the shortest one (June 2012 - July 2013). Kumar's predecessor, B K Gupta had a tenure of 19 months. Bhim Sain Bassi, who is set to take charge as the city police chief on August 1, will retire from service in February 2016 and is set to have a tenure of two years and six months.

In the last 10 years, it was K K Paul who had the longest tenure of three years and five months (Feb 2004 - July 2007). Y S Dadwal, who became the police commissioner after Paul's retirement, remained in office for three years and four months (July 2007 to November 2010).

The Supreme Court in an order in September, 2006, had recommended implementing various police reforms including having a fixed tenure of two years for DGPs of states irrespective of their date of superannuation.

Kumar, who had come under severe criticism following the December 16 gangrape incident, identified bringing professionalism into the force and cracking of a number of high-profile cases including the spot fixing scandal, as his major achievements as head of the force.

PTI