Commissioner of the Delhi Police

Commissioner of Police Delhi
दिल्ली पुलिस कमिश्नर
Rank Insignia of the Police Commissioner (Director General Rank)
Incumbent Satish Golcha , IPS since 22 August 2025
Delhi Police
Reports to	Union Home Minister Union Home Secretary
Residence	New Delhi Delhi
Appointer	Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India
Term length	60 years of age (whichever earlier) Renewable at Ministry's pleasure
Constituting instrument	The Delhi Police Act, 1978 [1] [2]
Inaugural holder	J. N. Chaturvedi
Formation	1978
Deputy	The Special Commissioner(s) of Police (one or more)
Website	Office of the Commissioner

The Commissioner of Police, Delhi or Delhi Police Commissioner is the head of the Delhi Police, the law enforcement agency of the 15 police districts (as of January 2019) of India's capital, Delhi.

Origins

In 1966, the Government of India constituted the Delhi Police Commission headed by Justice G.D. Khosla to investigate problems faced by Delhi Police. It was on the basis of the Khosla Commission Report that the Delhi Police was reorganised. Four Police districts were constituted: North, Central, South and New Delhi. The Delhi Police Commission also recommended the introduction of Police Commissioner system, which was eventually adopted on 1 July 1978.

Following the recommendations of "Khosla Commission", Commissioner of Police system in Delhi, the capital of India was started in 1978, with J.N. Chaturvedi being appointed as the first Police Commissioner of Delhi. It replaced the earlier Inspector General of Police system, where the Inspector General of police would report to the Divisional Commissioner (India) of Delhi, thus having a dual authority in effect. The Commissioner system brought an end to this dual authority as since then the appointed Commissioner of Police is of Director General of Police (DGP) reports to the Union Home Minister and the Lt Governor.

The longest serving Commissioner of Delhi Police is Krishan Kant Paul who served for 42 months (2004-2007). ^[3]

Incumbent police commissioner

The incumbent Commissioner of Delhi Police is Satish Golcha , IPS who took office on 22 August 2025 .

Former police commissioners

Delhi Police Headquarters

#	Name	Took office	Left office
1	J.N. Chaturvedi	Jul 1978	Jan 1980
2	P.S. Bhinder	Jan 1980	Dec 1981
3	Bajrang Lal	Dec 1981	Apr 1983
4	S.C. Tandon	Apr 1983	Nov 1984
5	S.S. Jog	Nov 1984	Apr 1985
6	Ved Marwah	Apr 1985	Apr 1988
7	Raja Vijay Karan	Apr 1988	Dec 1990
8	Arun Bhagat	Dec 1990	Feb 1992
9	M.B. Kaushal	Feb 1992	Jan 1995
10	Nikhil Kumar	Jan 1995	Apr 1997
11	T.R. Kakkar	Apr 1997	May 1998
12	V.N. Singh	May 1998	Jun 1999
13	Ajay Raj Sharma	Jul 1999	Jun 2002
14	R.S. Gupta	Jul 2002	Feb 2004
15	Krishan Kant Paul	Feb 2004	Jul 2007
16	Y.S. Dadwal	Jul 2007	Nov 2010
17	B.K. Gupta	Nov 2010	Jun 2012
18	Neeraj Kumar [4] [5]	Jun 2012	Jul 2013
19	Bhim Sain Bassi [6]	Jul 2013	Feb 2016
20	Alok Kumar Verma [7]	Feb 2016	Jan 2017
21	Amulya Patnaik	Feb 2017	Feb 2020
22	S.N.Srivastava	March 2020	June 2021
23	Balaji Srivastava (Interim)	July 2021	July 2021
24	Rakesh Asthana	July 2021 [8]	July 2022
25	Sanjay Arora	Aug 2022	July 2025
26	Shashi Bhushan Kumar Singh (Interim)	Aug 2025	Aug 2025
27	Satish Golcha	Aug 2025	Incumbent

Controversy

Opposition parties questioned the appointment of Rakesh Asthana, a 1984-Gujarat cadre IPS officer, as the Commissioner, who was appointed to the post on 27 July 2021, just before 4 days of his superannuation. ^{[9] [10]}

See also

• Police Commissioner of Mumbai
• Police Commissioner of Kolkata

References

1. "Rules, regulations, instructions, manuals and records for discharging functions". Delhi Police. Archived from the original on 26 February 2015. Retrieved 26 February 2015.
2. "The Delhi Police Act, 1978" (PDF). humanrightsinitiative.org.
3. "KK Paul is new governor of Meghalaya". The Telegraph . 2 July 2013. Retrieved 11 March 2019.
4. "FORMER COMMISSIONERS OF DELHI POLICE". Delhi Police. 2 May 2013. Retrieved 21 February 2015.
5. "Tihar DG Neeraj Kumar named Delhi Police Commissioner". 29 June 2012.
6. B S Bassi to be new Delhi Police Commissioner
7. "Alok Takes Charge As Delhi's New Police Commissioner". NDTV. 29 February 2016. Retrieved 16 June 2018.
8. Trivedi, Saurabh (28 July 2021). "Rakesh Asthana appointed Delhi Police Commissioner". The Hindu. Retrieved 28 July 2021.
9. Langa, Mahesh (28 July 2021). "For Rakesh Asthana, new role as Delhi Police Commissioner comes as vindication". The Hindu. Retrieved 29 July 2021.
10. "Congress questions appointment of Rakesh Asthana as Delhi Police chief". The Indian Express. 29 July 2021. Retrieved 29 July 2021.