Republic Day 2026: 31 CBI officers awarded police medal

CBI officers supervising investigations into the rape and murder of a doctor in Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and the murder of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar are among the 31 personnel of the central agency who received police medals on the occasion of the 77th Republic Day.

Joint Director V. Chandrasekhar, a 2000-batch IPS officer of Gujarat cadre, was awarded the coveted Presidential Meritorious Service Medal, according to the list released by the government on Sunday, January 25, 2026.

As Joint Director of the agency, the officer oversaw the investigation into the gruesome rape and murder of a trainee doctor at a Calcutta hospital, which led to the conviction of the main accused in the case a few months after he filed the charge sheet.

Superintendent of Police Amit Srivastava, Additional Inspector of Police Mukesh Sharma, Sub-Inspector Pramod Kumar Yati, Deputy Sub-Inspector Chaman Lal and Head Constable Ramu Golla were also awarded the Presidential Meritorious Service Medal.

Twenty-five officers of the agency were awarded police medals for Distinguished Service. These include 2007 batch IPS officer C Venkata Subba Reddy, who was posted as joint director in the agency, and his batchmate Sadanand Shakarrao Date, who left the agency as DIG to join its staff as inspector general at the Uttarakhand Police Station.

During his tenure at the Economic Offenses Branch (EOB), Date handled bank fraud allegations related to the MCX-SX case and NTC case as well as Zoom Developer Group Parekh Aluminex Ltd, Vidhyavasini Group SBI Cases. The officer served in the agency’s Special Crime, STF and ACB, Mumbai units. He was also involved in the Narendra Dabholkar murder case and busted the bribery racket in SEEPZ-SEZ, Mumbai, BECIL, CGST, among others.

Deputy Legal Counsel Manmohan Sharma; Additional SPs Baidyanath Samal and Kailash Sahu; Deputy SPs Rubi Choudhary, Manish Kumar Upadhyay, Anmol Sachan, Nishu Kushwaha, Arijit Sinha, Sharad Suresh Bhawar, Thahir Abbas P and Dharmendra Kumar are among those awarded the Police Medal for Meritorious Service (PMMS).

Inspector Dharmender, Programmer Deepti Vashista, ASI Vinod Kumar, Constable Inspector Narikote Nandini, Head Constable Netram Chourasiya, Puran Mal Gujjar, Bhola Roy, Babu Varghese and Vikram Singh along with constables Sanjeev Kumar, Waikhom Rajesh Singh and Rupendra Kumar were also awarded the PMMS award.