The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought to defuse a controversy over the sudden deletion of contempt petitions concerning the deputation of Indian Police Service (IPS) officers to the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) from the cause list. Justice Manoj Misra, who was part of the special bench hearing the matter, observed that “sometimes too much heat is generated out of nothing” as the court considered an explanation from its registry. The bench accepted the registry’s account of how the matters were omitted from the list and directed the parties to exchange their pleadings before the connected cases are heard together on October 15.
The controversy began after lawyers appearing in the contempt proceedings informed a bench headed by Justice Ujjal Bhuyan that the matters, which had been directed to be listed, had suddenly disappeared from the September 29 cause list. The bench subsequently sought an explanation from the registry. On Wednesday, the special bench said the Centre’s lawyers had approached Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on September 23 seeking that the contempt petitions and separate challenges to a new law governing IPS deputations be placed before the same bench. The matters were subsequently listed before Justice Bhuyan’s bench, which the registry said happened inadvertently.
The registry’s explanation said the Centre’s request to the Chief Justice was based on the connection between the two sets of proceedings. The government has argued in the contempt case that the enactment of the new legislation is relevant to its defence, while the validity of that legislation is itself under challenge in the connected writ petitions. The special bench said the registry should have informed the bench hearing the contempt petitions that the matters were likely to be placed before a special bench. Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati also acknowledged that the other side should have been informed about the mentioning before the CJI and apologised for the omission.
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Senior advocate Shyam Divan, representing the contempt petitioners, questioned the manner in which the proceedings had been handled and described the episode as a matter of institutional credibility. He argued that once a case appears in the Supreme Court’s cause list, parties make arrangements for the hearing and it should not be abruptly removed. The petitioners also maintained that several directions contained in the Supreme Court’s May 2025 judgment were independent of the subsequent legislation and that the contempt proceedings should not necessarily await the outcome of the challenge to the new law. The bench acknowledged those concerns but said the two sets of proceedings were closely connected because of the Centre’s reliance on the legislation.
The underlying dispute relates to the Supreme Court’s May 2025 judgment concerning the status and service structure of the five CAPFs — the Border Security Force, Central Industrial Security Force, Central Reserve Police Force, Indo-Tibetan Border Police and Sashastra Seema Bal. The court had directed the Centre to progressively phase out IPS officers on deputation up to the Senior Administrative Grade level in these forces. The subsequent contempt petitions allege non-compliance with those directions. Parliament later enacted the Central Armed Police Force (General Administration) Act, 2026, which provides for specified levels of senior posts in the CAPFs to be occupied by IPS officers. That legislation has itself been challenged before the Supreme Court.
The special bench ultimately directed that the contempt petitions and the challenges to the new legislation be listed together on October 15, advancing the hearing from November 18. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta supported the approach, arguing that the contempt proceedings could not be separated from the challenge to the legislation because the new law forms part of the Centre’s defence. The court’s direction effectively shifts the immediate focus from the cause-list controversy to the substantive legal questions involving IPS deputation, the May 2025 judgment and the validity of the 2026 legislation. Justice Misra, meanwhile, urged the parties not to allow the listing episode to generate disproportionate concern, saying that “too much heat” had been generated over the issue.
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