Been posted in World Affairs and for ease of everybody its better to mention the country as how many among thousands of readers know where Kerala is.
BTW isnt he IGP police in one of the Indian states ?
May I be permitted to throw some light on your question?
Under the Indian Police Act, 1861, which is the act under which the Indian Police Service was set up in 1948 as a replacement for the earlier Indian Police (those IP officers who wanted to stay on were given their equivalent position in the IPS), there was only one cadre position of Inspector General for a Police District. The Police District in later years came to be defined as the state.
In, I think, 1984, an additional position of Director General was created, in order to afford IPS officers avenues of promotion and increase their pay to some extent; other services had considerably improved their package and prospects through successive measures, and this was intended to keep pace.
Now the situation became one where there might be more than one DGP to a state. In order to keep the heirarchy clear, and in order to meet the statutory provision, which remained unchanged, one of them, the head of the state police force, was specifically designated DG & IGP. This officer, and no other, is the head of the state force. There are other DGs in a state normally, and a number of IGs, which is now two things: a rank, held by between 10 to 11 senior officers, and a post, held by only one, the DG & IGP.
So the senior-most person is a DG & IGP, who has reporting to him between 3 to 5, sometimes even more, other DGs; and reporting to the DGs is a number of IGs, who are now the equivalent of three star officers.
The ranking senior officer in India is the Director IB, who has been a four star equivalent since the days of B. N. Mallik, an officer who worked under Nehru, and an officer about whom Indian policemen have mixed feelings.
I hope this is helpful.
Sincerely,