82 police officers sue IGP for failing to promote them after study leave

Some aggrieved police officers, numbering a total of eighty-two (82), have sued the Attorney General (1st Defendant), the Ghana Police Service (2nd Defendant), and the Inspector General of Police (3rd Defendant) for acting unfairly and capriciously with respect to the failure of the Ghana Police Service to promote them after the completion of their studies through the study leave with pay policy of the service.

In a suit filed at the High Court in Accra, the police officers led by D/Inspector Kofi Osal, who were granted study leave with pay for the 2017/2018 academic year, accused the Ghana Police Service of denying them their deserved accelerated promotions or entry into the Police College after the successful completion of their studies.

They insist that even after duly notifying the Ghana Police Service upon completion of their programs of study and petitioning it to promote them, the police service still failed to promote them notwithstanding the fact that other persons under similar circumstances have been promoted.

The eighty-two police officers noted that the Ghana Police Service engaged in an “unfair and unreasonable exercise of discretion, the failure to uphold the duty to be fair and candid not to act in a capricious or biased manner or be driven by resentment, prejudice, and personal dislike on the part of the 2nd[ Ghana Police Service] and 3rd[ the IGP] defendants,” and therefore demand that the Court give “(a) An order directed against the 2nd and 3rd Defendants to grant those amongst them who qualify for accelerated promotions as well as permit all of them to enter the Police College/Academy without any further delay.
(b) Any or further orders as the Honourable Court may deem fit”.

The suit was filed on May 15, 2023, and the defendants are expected to enter their defence within eight days after being duly served.