Vinaytosh Mishra Holds Odisha DGP Charge as Supreme Court Keeps Regular Selection on Hold

Vinaytosh Mishra, a 1993-batch IPS officer heading the Odisha Crime Branch, continues to hold additional charge as the state's Director General of Police after the Supreme Court kept the process for selecting a regular DGP on hold pending its next hearing, now scheduled for September 2.

Odisha's regular DGP selection has been snarled in a Supreme Court challenge after a public interest litigation, filed by Baleshwar district resident Jayanta Das, alleged the state government tried to include an ineligible officer in the panel sent to the Union Public Service Commission for consideration. Senior advocate P. Chidambaram, appearing for the petitioner, told the court the Odisha government had first sent a list of eleven eligible officers in April, withdrew it, and then sent a revised panel of three DGP-rank and eight ADGP-rank officers. The apex court, hearing the matter under Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, has directed the UPSC not to finalise its shortlist until the dispute is resolved, leaving Mishra in interim charge in the meantime.

Mishra, born on November 3, 1966, in Bihar's Madhubani district, holds a BSc in Engineering and a Master's degree in Police Management, and has spent over three decades in Odisha Police, including a tenure as Director of the State Crime Records Bureau, where he managed statewide crime data collection and analysis. He also previously held additional charge as DG of Fire Services, Home Guards and Civil Defence, giving him experience across the state's uniformed services beyond core policing, before his current assignment heading the Crime Branch.

He took over from Y.B. Khurania, a 1990-batch officer who retired as Odisha's 38th DGP on August 16 after being repatriated to the state from a Special Director General posting in the Border Security Force. The Supreme Court petition specifically challenged the state government's promotion of two 1994-batch officers, Sanjeeb Panda and Yashwant Kumar Jethwa, to DG rank shortly before finalising its panel, a move the petitioner argued was intended to influence the eventual UPSC shortlist in favour of particular candidates.

Mishra himself is reportedly not among the officers under active consideration for the regular post, since he does not meet the minimum residual service requirement the Supreme Court's Prakash Singh guidelines impose on DGP candidates, having only a few months of service left before his own retirement. Officers more frequently named as contenders include Sudhanshu Sarangi, the senior-most DGP-rank officer in the state from the 1990 batch, and R.P. Koche of the 1993 batch, both with longer residual service ahead of them than Mishra.

The interim arrangement means Odisha Police is being run by an officer expected to retire within months rather than a DGP with the two-year minimum tenure the Supreme Court's own guidelines otherwise call for, an outcome the litigation itself is meant to prevent once a regular appointee is finally named through the UPSC process.

The Supreme Court's next hearing on the matter will determine whether the UPSC can proceed with finalising its panel, with Mishra continuing in additional charge as Head of Police Force until a regular DGP is appointed.