Deven Bharti takes charge as special commissioner of Mumbai Police

MUMBAI, (PTI): Senior Indian Police Service officer Deven Bharti took charge as the special commissioner of Mumbai Police on Thursday, a day after the Maharashtra home department issued the appointment order for the newly created post.

IPS officer Vivek Phansalkar is currently the Mumbai police commissioner.

The creation of the new post and Bharti’s appointment have been criticised by the opposition Congress and Nationalist Congress Party, which have accused Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who holds the home portfolio, of trying to create a ”parallel administration.”

A police official on Thursday said Bharti reached the city police head office in south Mumbai in the morning and got on to his new role after meeting Mumbai Police Commissioner Phansalkar and other top officials.

Bharti, a 1994-batch IPS officer, is considered to be close to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Fadnavis. He was the joint commissioner of police (law and order) when Fadnavis was the state’s chief minister 2014 to 2019.

Subsequently, he was shifted to the Anti-Terrorism Squad on promotion as additional director general of police.

Bharti was shunted out when the Maha Vikas Aghadi government of Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress came to power in 2019. He was made joint managing director of the Maharashtra State Security Corporation, considered to be a relatively insignificant posting.

On December 13, 2022, Bharti was replaced by joint commissioner (traffic) Rajvardhan, and since then he had been awaiting new posting along with former ATS chief Vinit Agarwal, former Thane police commissioner Bipin Kumar Singh and former Anti-Corruption Bureau chief Prabhat Kumar, an official earlier said.

On Wednesday, state Congress’s chief spokesman Atul Londhe said the commissioner is the senior-most post in Mumbai Police, and claimed Fadnavis was trying to create a parallel administration of his own by creating a new post. The new post will divide the police force, he said.

NCP spokesperson Mahesh Tapase had questioned the rationale behind the decision and wondered if the government would also create new posts of “special governor, special chief secretary and special municipal commissioner for Mumbai”.