Srinagar: The J&K High Court on Monday issued fresh notice to the J&K Government and J&K Police on a plea seeking a CBI probe into alleged illegal appointments of Special Police Officers (SPOs) as constables from 2018 till March 2020.
A division bench of Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Puneet Gupta issued the notice to J&K Chief Secretary, Principal Secretary Home, Director General of Police, and the SSP Anantnag and asked the officials to respond to the contentions of the PIL.
Dr Sandeep Mawa, who filed the litigation through his counsel Salih Pirzada, also sought details of all the candidates who had been recruited/ appointed on the basis of field operations duties by the Director General of Police (DGP) and Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Anantnag in the last three years.
The petitioner submitted that the SSP Anantnag in connivance with the DGP J&K had recruited/ appointed Special Police Officers (SPOs) who had taken no part in field operations as Constables on the basis of operational functions in the districts of Anantnag, Pulwama, Shopian and Kulgam.
It was submitted that the persons so appointed were either working as personal security officers for high-profile bureaucrats or were performing the duties at the residences of police officers and other bureaucrats.
“By indulging in this act, the SSP Anantnag and DGP J&K police have indulged in mass-scale irregularities in appointing them as Constables,” the petitioner stated.
Mawa through his plea also alleged there was a nexus in the police department which allowed such recruitments in the police department to be made with impunity.
“The appointees are illegally shown to have participated in Operational Duties, particularly in south Kashmir, when there is no scope of their proximity in the field operations. The SPOs detailed as personal guards have no occasion to perform Operational Functions, therefore, to lift the veil, the jurisdiction of this court is sought to achieve the public interest,” the petitioner submitted.
The petition further said that neither the government nor the police department had uploaded the appointment orders of these constables on their website, which points to irregularity and arbitrariness on the part of the authorities.
“The approach of the respondent police needs to be ascertained and looked into by an agency other than the one which directly controls the Police Department. Therefore, in the fitness of things, the Central Bureau of Investigation needs to be directed to take the case into their hands and investigate the matter thoroughly and submit the report to this Court,” the petitioner sought.

NUSRAT SIDIQ