Karnataka Transfers 15 IPS Officers in Weekend Reshuffle

The Karnataka government on Saturday transferred 15 IPS officers spanning batches from 1996 to 2020, in a reshuffle that touched senior Additional Director General of Police posts as well as district-level Superintendent of Police assignments, according to the order issued by the state home department.

At the top of the list, Harishekaran P (1996 batch) moves from Additional Director General of Police, Crimes and Technical Services, Bengaluru, to head the Directorate of Civil Rights Enforcement, while M. Nanjundaswami (1997 batch) shifts from the Fire and Emergency Services wing to Grievances and Human Rights, and Devajyoti Ray (1999 batch) moves in the opposite direction, from Grievances and Human Rights into Crimes and Technical Services, effectively completing a three-way rotation among senior ADGP charges.

Amit Singh (2007 batch) moves from Inspector General, Western Range, Mangaluru, to head the Karnataka State Reserve Police in an upgraded post, a promotion of sorts within the reshuffle, while several 2009-to-2016 batch officers were rotated across City Commissionerate and district charges, including Borase Bhushan Gulabrao moving from Belagavi City to Hubballi-Dharwad, and R. Srinivas Gowda moving from Superintendent, Ramanagara, to Deputy Commissioner of Police, City Crime Branch-1, Bengaluru.

Also among the mid-seniority moves, R. Chethan (2010 batch), who had been awaiting posting, has now been assigned to Inspector General, Western Range, Mangaluru, the post Amit Singh vacates, while Nikam Prakash Amrit (2012 batch) and Shiva Prakash Devaraju (2014 batch), both previously awaiting posting, have been assigned to Belagavi City and the Anti-Narcotic Task Force respectively.

Among the newer batches, Kushal Chouksey (2018), Sahil Bagla (2018), Rohan Jagadeesh (2019) and Mithun H N (2020) were all moved into district Superintendent of Police or Deputy Commissioner charges, the standard rung of postings for officers at their seniority level within Karnataka's cadre, with Sahil Bagla's move from Traffic East Division, Bengaluru City, to Koppal marking a shift from a metropolitan traffic charge to a district posting.

Bulk reshuffles spanning close to a quarter-century of batches are relatively uncommon and typically follow a review of vacancies across both the state's specialised wings, such as the Lokayukta and Anti-Narcotic Task Force, and its regular district and commissionerate postings, suggesting the state was clearing a backlog of pending assignments across several ranks at once.

Notably, Padmini Sahoo (2015 batch) moves from Deputy Commissioner of Police, Administration, Bengaluru, to Superintendent of Police, Chikkaballapur, while Kushal Chouksey moves in the reverse direction into her earlier post, illustrating how the reshuffle cycled some officers directly into positions vacated by others on the same list.