The Karnataka government Saturday issued a notification for the appointment of senior IPS officer Dr M A Saleem as the full-time Director General and Inspector General of Police (head of the police force) of Karnataka.
The order came close on the heels of the state assuring the Karnataka High Court about appointing a regular state police chief after Saleem was appointed as the interim police chief following the retirement of the former police chief, Alok Mohan, on May 21, 2025.
Saleem, 59, a 1993-batch IPS officer, who held concurrent charge of the CID unit of the state police after his appointment as interim police chief in May, is third in seniority rank among DGPs in Karnataka after Praveen Sood (1982 batch), who is the CBI director, and Prashant Kumar Thakur (1992 batch), who is in state service.
On August 28, the Karnataka High Court had disposed of a public interest litigation (PIL) filed over the May 21, 2025, appointment of the senior Karnataka IPS officer of the rank of director general of police, Saleem, as the in-charge police chief of the state.
The PIL filed by Advocate Sudha Katwa was disposed of by a division bench of the high court comprising Chief Justice Vibhu Bakru and Justice C M Joshi after Karnataka Advocate General K Shashikiran Shetty told the court that the state would issue a notice within a week of receiving an IPS officers’ empanelment list from the Union Public Service Commission.
The PIL had sought the speedy completion of the process of appointment of a regular police chief for Karnataka in accordance with the directives issued by the Supreme Court in the 1996 Prakash Singh case. The PIL had also sought to expedite the empanelment process of IPS officers as per SC directives and “selection and appointment of a regular DG and IGP at the earliest.”
The Karnataka HC was informed on Thursday that an interim in-charge DG and IGP had been appointed through the May 21, 2025, order on account of the state awaiting an UPSC order of empanelment of senior IPS officers eligible for the post of the police chief in Karnataka.
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“The reason for the delay is the UPSC not sending the names,” the Advocate General told the court, while adding that a UPSC empanelment committee meeting was held on August 26 and that the state had communicated to the UPSC to send the final list at the earliest.
“A meeting of the empanelment committee was held on August 26, 2025. The state government has since communicated with the UPSC for the constitution of a panel… within a period of one week of receiving the communication, the necessary action will be taken. In view of the above, we do not consider it necessary to issue any further directions. The present petition is disposed of,” the HC division bench said.
The PIL had sought to prohibit Saleem from exercising duties as the DGP and IG of the Karnataka police during the pendency of the writ petition. The petitioner claimed that the Karnataka government had delayed communicating with the UPSC for the empanelment list.
Saleem holds a PhD in ‘Traffic Management in Metropolitan Cities’.