Context: Recently, Delhi High Court has granted 12 weeks to the Union government to decide on whether to scrap or retain the dual control structure for Assam Rifles, which comes under both the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Defence.
About Assam Rifles

• Assam Rifles is the oldest paramilitary force raised way back in 1835 in British India 
• Assam Rifles is one of the six central armed police forces (CAPFs) under the administrative control of Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
• It is tasked with the maintenance of law and order in the North East along with the Indian Army and also guards the Indo-Myanmar border in the region.
• It has a sanctioned strength of over 63,000 personnel and has 46 battalions apart from administrative and training staff.
• The force is commanded by Lieutenant General from the Indian Army.

How is it unique?

• It is the only paramilitary force with a dual control structure.
• While the administrative control of the force is with the Ministry of Home Affairs, its operational control is with the Indian Army, which is under the Ministry of Defence.
• This means that salaries and infrastructure for the force is provided by the MHA, but the deployment, posting, transfer and deputation of the personnel is decided by the Army.

Contribution of Assam Rifles

• It has gone on to fight in two World Wars, the Sino-Indian War of 1962 and used as an anti-insurgency force against militant groups in the North East.
• Assam Rifles was first known as Cachar Levy as it raised as a militia to protect British tea estates and its settlements from the raids of the NE tribes.
• It was reorganised later as Assam Frontier Force as its role was expanded to conduct punitive operations beyond Assam borders.
• Given its contribution in opening the region to administration and commerce, it came to be known as the “right arm of the civil and left arm of the military”.
• It was operating in foreign land as part of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to Sri Lanka in 1987 (Operation Pawan) to peacekeeping role in the North-Eastern areas of India.
• It remains the most awarded paramilitary force in both pre- and post-independent India.

Additional Information

• The other forces being the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF): the Border Security Force (BSF), the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB).