He served as the Advisor to the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir[1] with Home, Forest, Ecology & Environment, Health & Medical Education, Youth Services & Sports, Hospitality & Protocol, Civil Aviation, Estates and Information portfolios.

In 1997 he was posted as the first Inspector General of Police for the South Zone of Tamil Nadu after having handled the caste clashes in the southern districts.

[7] A 1975-batch IPS officer of Tamil Nadu cadre, Vijay Kumar had earlier served in the Kashmir Valley as Inspector General of BSF 1998-2001 when the border guarding force was actively involved in the counter-militancy operations.

Vijay Kumar was shot to fame when he headed the Special Task Force (STF) for a long-time and strategised operations that culminated in the elimination of the dreaded sandalwood smuggler Veerappan in October 2004.

[citation needed] In June 2018, Vijay Kumar was appointed as adviser to Governor Vohra, along with Chhattisgarh cadre IAS officer BVR Subrahmanyam.

The names of advisers were cleared by the Ministry of Home Affairs in Government of India after the state was put under the Governor's rule.

[8] In December 2019, he was appointed as senior security adviser in the Ministry of Home Affairs, where he'll consult on the security-related matters of Union Territory of JK [Jammu and Kashmir] and left wing extremism-affected states.