Sanjay Pandey appointed Mumbai police commissioner, replaces Hemant Nagrale

Maharashtra Director General Sanjay Pandey has been appointed the commissioner of Mumbai police.

Maharashtra Director General Sanjay Pandey, who was in-charge of the Maharashtra State Security Corporation and formerly the Home Guards, has been appointed as the new commissioner of Mumbai police.

While Pandey was holding the additional charge of the Maharashtra Director General of Police (DGP), a public interest litigation was filed in the Bombay High Court praying that the state should get a full-time DGP instead of one who was just acting DGP. Pandey was acting DGP of the state for over 10 months.

After the High Court came down heavily on the state government, Anti-Corruption Bureau chief Rajnish Seth was appointed as the DGP of Maharashtra replacing Sanjay Pandey.

The High Court commented about how the Maharashtra government was “favouring” Pandey, and that he was the "blue-eyed boy of the government" whose name did not make the list of three officers shortlisted by the UPSC as per the Prakash Singh judgment.

Currently, Pandey is the senior-most IPS officer in Maharashtra and is due for retirement in June 2022. The state will be searching for a new Mumbai police commissioner in the next three months.

Pandey will be taking over the post from Hemant Nagrale. Nagarale had been appointed as the DGP after the then DGP Subodh Jaiswal had taken up an assignment as CBI director in Delhi.

However, following the aftermath of the Antilia bomb scare and businessman Mansukh Hiren's death, the then Mumbai police commissioner, Param Bir Singh, was unceremonially shunted out and Nagrale was appointed as the Mumbai police commissioner.