Delhi ACP Manasvi Vashistha has been suspended by the Ministry of Home Affairs after he led a demonstration at Delhi Police headquarters against transfers linked to a confrontation between police personnel and lawyers at Shahdara police station.
The suspension order, dated November 2, was issued under Rule 10 of the Central Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1965, and took immediate effect. It stated that Vashistha, a 2019-batch DANIPS officer, would remain headquartered in Delhi during the suspension and could not leave the capital without permission from the competent authority.
The order also provides for a subsistence allowance equivalent to the leave salary the officer would have received on half-average pay or half pay, along with dearness allowance where admissible. Police sources said Vashistha had received the suspension letter.
The action followed a gathering of hundreds of Delhi Police personnel at police headquarters a day earlier. The personnel were protesting the transfers of Vashistha and inspector Arun Kumar after an October 23 confrontation at Shahdara police station. Delhi Police described the gathering as a ‘sampark sabha’, or interaction meeting.
The transfers followed an alleged scuffle in which an advocate suffered a serious head injury. Lawyers accused the two officers of misbehaviour and alleged that Vashistha had brandished his pistol. Vashistha, who had earlier been posted in Gandhi Nagar, was transferred to the Special Police Unit for Women and Children. Kumar, who was the Shahdara station house officer, was moved to the security unit.
Vashistha led the police mobilisation, although he told reporters that it had been an organic call by police personnel and that he had joined it. He also said an application had been submitted seeking an opportunity to present the police personnel’s grievances before senior officers.
During his address, the ACP called for a standard operating procedure governing the entry of lawyers into police stations. He proposed that the entry of more than five people wearing black coats be treated as an unlawful assembly. He also sought a dedicated cell at police headquarters for such incidents, immediate cancellation of bar licences in cases of alleged misbehaviour with police personnel and the deployment of two companies of security forces at every court complex.
The episode has placed police transfers, internal disciplinary control and security arrangements around Delhi’s court complexes at the centre of an ongoing dispute between police personnel and the legal community. The immediate administrative action is the suspension ordered by the MHA, while the transfer orders and the police headquarters gathering remain part of the broader conflict following the Shahdara incident.
