Context: Political interference in police postings continues despite the landmark Prakash Singh judgment nearly a decade-and-a-half ago that addressed the issue and was pegged to be a watershed moment in police reforms.

• The latest episode of allegations of lobbying by several IPS officers in Maharashtra and of ‘power brokers’ deciding on postings in cahoots with the government shows little has changed in the system.
• While state police forces are responsible for maintaining law and order and investigating crimes, central forces assist them with intelligence and internal security challenges.
• Police have the power to investigate crimes, enforce laws and maintain law and order in a state. To ensure that such power is only used for legitimate purposes, various countries have adopted safeguards such as making police accountable to the political executive and creating independent oversight authorities.
• In India, the political executive has the power of superintendence and control over the police forces to ensure their accountability. However, the Second Administrative Reforms Commission has noted that this power has been misused, and ministers have used police forces for personal and political reasons.  Hence, experts have recommended that the scope of the political executive’s power must be limited under law. In this edition of Big Picture, we analyse the issue of police reforms. 

India’s Long History of Attempted Police Reforms

• National Police Commission (NPC) (1977-81): Established after the Emergency, the NPC produced 8 reports suggesting major reforms across a range of police issues.
• Ribeiro Committee (1998): Established by the Supreme Court to review the lack of action taken to implement NPC recommendations and to re-frame a new police act
• Padmanabhaiah Committee (2000): Dealt with the issues of politicization and criminalization of the police and police accountability
• Malimath Committee (2002-03): Suggested changes to the Indian Penal Code and outlined ways of improving judicial proceedings
• Police Act Drafting Committee 1 (2005): Drafted a new model Police Act to replace the 1861 Police Act.
• Supreme Court Directives (Prakash Singh Case) 2006: SC issued seven directives to state police forces including setting up State Security Commissions, Police Establishment Boards and a Police Complaints Authority
• Second Administrative Reforms (2007): Noted that police-public relations were unsatisfactory and suggested a range of reforms to change this
• Justice Thomas Committee (2010): Highlighted the total indifference of state governments to police reforms
• Supreme Court Directives (On Centre’s plea to modify 2006 verdict) 2018: New directives on police reforms and reviewed states progress in the implementation of the 2006 directives

Issues faced by Police in India

Overburdened: Police work under incomprehensible pressure as they are understaffed. India had (in 2017) 131 police officers per 1,00,000 people; that is lower than the sanctioned number (181) and UN recommended number (222)

• Slow filling of vacancies in Police which further aggravates the understaffed situation. More than 5 lakh vacancies exist in police forces as of Jan 2020.
• They are poorly paid when compared to their counterparts in developed countries

Poor Living Conditions: Police infrastructure is perennially underfunded, and, with some notable exceptions, there are few efforts to improve them.

• Political Control: They are usually beholden to corrupt and venal superiors.
• Prejudiced: Many policemen, like the rest of Indians, carry prejudices—hidden and not-so-hidden—which make their performance uneven and unfair
• Police Abuse: There are complaints against the police including unwarranted arrests, unlawful searches, torture and custodial rapes
• Not Citizen friendly: Interactions with the police are generally considered frustrating, time-consuming and costly
• Weak Investigations: Well over 50% of cases filed by the police (nearly 80% in rape cases) end up in acquittals. One of the reasons is that Police often prioritise law & order over investigative matters
• Structural issues: 86% of the police force are constables, who have no growth path other than a single promotion (to Head Constable) before they retire. This pushes them to adopt corrupt pathways thus reducing the credibility of Police
• Low Public Trust: A study by Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) found that less than 25% of Indians trust the police highly (54% for the army).
• Lack of Uniformity across India: Policing in India is a state subject which means there is significant variation across states.
• Resource Crunch: Between fiscal 2011 and 2015, states spent 4.4% of their budgeted expenditure on policing on average but this has reduced to 4% over the 2015-19
• Frequent Transfer often leads to dilution of accountability of Police actions and inability to implement long-term reforms

Process of appointing and removing police chief

•  A crucial way in which governments exercise control over the State police is through their unregulated power to decide who the chief will be.
• There is no independent vetting process to assess the suitability of qualified candidates, and the government’s assessment, if it is done at all, remains opaque and is an exercise behind closed doors.
• The moot reform issue is in ensuring the right balance between the government’s legitimate role in appointing or removing the police chief with the need to safeguard the chief’s operational autonomy.

Need for reforms
Two elements are vital to reforms in this area.
1) Shift the responsibility to independent oversight body of which government is one part

• The National Police Commission (NPC) (1979), and the Supreme Court in its judgment in 2006, in the Prakash Singh case suggested establishing a state-level oversight body with a specified role in the appointment and removal of police chiefs.
• While the Supreme Court entrusted the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) with a role in shortlisting candidates from which the State government is to appoint the police chief.
• However, the Model Police Bill, 2015 places the responsibility with a multiparty State Police Board, also referred to as the State Security Commission (SSCs) instead.

No compliance with SC directive in the formation of SSC

• While 26 States and the Union Territories have established SSCs, not a single one adheres to the balanced composition suggested by the top court.
• Some do not include the Leader of the Opposition; others neither include independent members nor follow an independent selection process of the members.
• In essence, the commissions remain dominated by the political executive.
• Moreover, in as many as 23 States, governments retain the sole discretion of appointing the police chief. Assam, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Meghalaya and Mizoram are the only States where, on paper, the SSC is given the responsibility of shortlisting candidates.

2) Need for transparency

• The second element critical to police reforms is instituting an independent and transparent selection and decision-making process around appointment and removal, against objective criteria.
• On appointments, the Court and the Model Police Act require the UPSC/SSC to shortlist candidates on the basis of length of service, service record, and range of experience and a performance appraisal of the candidates over the past 10 years.
• However, no further guidance has been developed on explaining these terms or specifying their elements.
• Similarly, no scrutiny process has been prescribed to justify removals from tenure posts.
• The National Police Commission had required State governments to seek the approval of the State Security Commission before removing the police chief before the end of term.
• This important check was diluted under the Prakash Singh judgment that only requires governments to consult the SSC.
• Most States omit even this cursory step.
• The Supreme Court has rightly emphasised that “prima facie satisfaction of the government” alone is not a sufficient ground to justify removal from a tenure post in government, such as that of the police chief (T.P. Senkumar vs Union of India, 2017).
• The rule of law requires such decisions be for compelling reasons and based on verifiable material that can be objectively tested.

Suggestion

• Clear and specific benchmarks need to be integrated into decision-making processes, both on appointments and removals, to prevent politically motivated adverse actions.
• In improving transparency the United Kingdom provides a useful example by introducing public confirmation hearings as an additional layer of check for the appointment of the heads of their police forces.

Road Ahead

• Reforms are needed on urgent to ensure fairness in administrative decisions and to protect the political neutrality of the police. Any further delay in implementing reforms in this area will continue to demoralise the police and cripple the rule of law.