Kerala High Court grants State four weeks to appoint chief investigator in SPCA
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The Kerala High Court has granted the State government four weeks to appoint a Chief Investigating Officer (CIO) in the State Police Complaints Authority (SPCA), constituted under the Kerala Police Act, 2011, to consider complaints against police officers.
The Division Bench of Chief Justice Soumen Sen and Justice V.M. Syam Kumar was considering a public interest litigation regarding the effective functioning of the SPCA and the delay in appointing the CIO.
The State informed the court on Wednesday that the Home department had constituted a three-member search and selection committee to facilitate the appointment, and that the committee had been requested to finalise the appointment criteria, keeping the nature and responsibility of the post in mind.
The petitioner, Jaffer Khan of Ernakulam, had approached the court earlier claiming a prolonged failure of the State to appoint the CIO to assist the SPCA in its investigative functions. In this case, the court had directed the State to finalise the selection process within 60 days from April 1, 2022. The present petition said that even though several years had passed since the order, the requirement under the Kerala Police Act had not been met for an adequate investigative mechanism for the SPCA.
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