The Maharashtra government formally announced today the appointment of Dattatray Padsalgikar as the new commissioner of Mumbai police.
Padsalgikar replaced Ahmad Javed as Mumbai police’s chief after Javed, who served for 36 years in the police force.
A 1982-batch officer, Padsalgikar would be the first Maharashtrian police chief of Mumbai after eight years, after D N Jadhav who held the office between March 2007 and February 2008.
State home department officials, however, also made another crucial announcement of downgrading the post of Mumbai police commissioner to the rank of Additional Director General of Police (ADG).
In October last year, the state government had promoted and and transferred former commissioner Rakesh Maria and announced that the post of the commissioner will be of the rank of Director General (DG). Javed being a DG level officer was then appointed as the new commissioner of Mumbai police for a period of less than four months.
Padsalgikar has served around 12 years with the Intelligence Bureau and was repatriated to the Maharashtra police cadre two weeks ago.
Padsalgikar will take charge as the Mumbai police commissioner on Sunday, while his predecessor Javed will be India’s Ambassador-designate to Saudi Arabia.
