After Much Delay, Odisha IPS Officer Satish Gajbhiye Promoted To IG Rank

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has promoted IPS officer Satish Gajbhiye to the grade of IG of Police.

The promotion of Gajbhiye to the rank of deputy inspector general of police (DIG) will be effective from February 23, 2016, and to the rank of IG with retrospective effect from January 1, 2020.

Two separate notifications were issued by the General Administration and Public Grievance department in this regard on Tuesday.

His place of posting will be decided by Home Department, it added.

The 2002-batch IPS officer continued as an SP-ranked officer, serving as principal of the urban police and traffic training institute in Bhubaneswar, though he should have been promoted to the rank of IG much earlier but for an allegation that he had “siphoned” off the reward money for an anti-Maoist operation while serving as Malkangiri SP in 2008.

In December 2021, the government closed the disciplinary proceeding and dropped the charges against him following a directive from the Supreme Court, which observed that the disciplinary authority, Sanjeeb Panda, an IPS officer, and the DIG of police (intelligence), had carried out the inquiry without any approved powers.

It was after a decade-long legal and administrative battle that the IPS officer could have his name cleared in the controversy and it also paved way for three pending promotions and other benefits that were earlier denied.

Notably, the Orissa high court in December 2020, had rapped the state police department for carrying out a “vitiated” inquiry.