The Supreme Court today(September 29) questioned the Supreme Court Registry why a batch of contempt petitions relating to the deputation of 46 Indian Police Service (IPS) officers to five Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) was struck off the cause list despite judicial orders to list the matters at 2 pm. It has passed an order directing that the contempt petitions be listed again tomorrow at 2 pm, and have sought an explanation from the registry as to why it was deleted from the today's causelist.

The matter was listed before a bench comprising Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice AS Chandurkar at 2 pm. However, it was alleged that the matter was struck off the cause list around 12 pm without notice to the parties and without prior orders from the Court. Senior Advocate Guru Krishnakumar(for the contempt petitioners) brought this to the notice of the Court.

Guru Krishna Kumar told the bench: "My colleagues say that the instructions are from the listing branch [of the Supreme Court]. I don't know what's happening. It's a little unfortunate. We have informed the other side. Mylords, may recall they[respondents] filed an affidavit, they wanted to replace that affidavit. They did it after 12[pm], no notice nothing."

The bench then asked the court master if there was any prior information as to why that happened.

Subsequently, it passed an order directing that the matter be listed again: "We had passed the following orders. The matter is listed as item no. 32 in today's list. However, the Court has been informed that at 2 pm that the case has been struck off from the cause list during the lunch break. Since it is a judicial order to get the case listed today at 2 pm, we direct the listing of this case tomorrow again at 2 pm, along with the other connected matters, again tomorrow, i.e. on 30.09.2026, at 02:00 PM, with a note by the Registry, as to why the matter was struck off from the cause list despite there being a judicial order."

The contempt petitions have been filed against the Ministry of Home Affairs Secretary Govind Mohan over alleged non-compliance with the Court's May 23, 2025 judgment in Sanjay Prakash & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. As per the September 22 order, the Court was unable to hear the matter due to time constraints and therefore listed the matter to be heard today.

As per the order dated September 2, the Court sought a detailed explanation from the Ministry of Home Affairs on the deputation of 46 Indian Police Service (IPS) officers to five CAPFs, despite its earlier direction to progressively reduce deputation posts in the CAPF cadres. It was examining compliance with its earlier directions and had specifically asked the Secretaries of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) to file affidavits detailing the steps taken to implement the 2025 judgment.

The affidavit in question was filed by the MHA Secretary as per which, 46 IPS officers up to the Senior Administrative Grade (SAG) level were brought on deputation to the CAPFs after May 23, 2025.

It may be noted that the Parliament had passed a law this year - the Central Armed Police Force (General Administration) Act, 2026- to circumvent the May 2025 judgment. The law provides that 50% of the total posts in the rank of Inspector General and a minimum of 67% of the posts in the rank of Additional Director General and all posts in the ranks of Special Director General and Director General shall be filled by Indian Police Service (IPS) officers on deputation.

Case Details : Mahendra Singh Deo v Govind Mohan and others

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