IPS leadership must focus on police reforms, not eye positions in other forces

S.K. Sood

The British created the ‘Indian Imperial Police’, (officially known as the Imperial Police or IP) for higher supervisory police administration in the British Raj. The IP was created to ensure uniform system of police administration in British India as mandated by the government of India Act 1858 and Police Act 1861. The service was created to ensure that dangers like the one witnessed by the British during the 1857 Revolution, did not arise again.

Senior leadership of IP was exclusively European till about 1900. The recruitment of IP officers initially was by nomination. However, from 1893 onwards officers were recruited through competitive civil service exams held in London. Indians were not allowed to serve as officers until early 1900s, when the entrance exam was opened for Indians in 1920. By the time India became independent, the ratio of Indians in the officer’s ranks stood at about 30 per cent.

The Imperial Police comprised the Superior Police Services, which is parallel to the present-day Indian Police Service (IPS), and the Subordinate Police Service. The Subordinate Police Service consisted of inspectors, sub-inspectors, head constables (or sergeant in the city forces and cantonments) and constables, consisting mainly of Indians.

In 1948, a year after India’s Independence, the Imperial Police Service was replaced by the Indian Police Service (IPS), which had been constituted as part of the All-India Services by the Constitution.

Article 312 of the Indian Constitution empowers Parliament to create new All-India Services (AIS) common to both the Union and the States, provided the Rajya Sabha passes a resolution with a two-thirds majority declaring that such a service is necessary in the national interest. The rational for the upper house initiating the process through a special majority resolution is that the AIS has to serve both the central and State governments. The Parliament thereafter can pass a law to create the service, regulate recruitment and define service. 

The Indian Administrative Service (IAS), IPS, and Indian Forest Service (IFS) which were existing at the time of adoption of the Constitution are deemed to have been created under this Article.

The Imperial Police was responsible to police the entire British Indian territory including Burma (now Myanmar). The force was frequently utilised to infiltrate and suppress nationalist movements. Imperial Police exercised unprecedented degree of authority within the colonial administration. 

The relation between the Imperial Police Service officers vis-à-vis Subordinate Police Service officers and the general population was that of master and serfs. The Constitution lists police as a state subject, hence the subordinate police officers continue to be recruited by states while the IPS leadership is recruited through civil service examination held annually.

The colonial ethos inherited from the British continue to prevail even after Independence, with police treating common people with disdain. This is apparent from the data of custodial deaths, so called encounters, which in most cases will be established as custodial deaths if proper investigations are carried out, besides the inability to control crimes, especially against women and children.

xxx CAPF Press Conference

The instances of police misbehaviour are rampant and that common public readily believes the allegations of misbehaviour to be true is a sad reflection on the image of the police. Honourable exceptions apart, it is only the politically or socially connected people having institutional support whose voices are heard and their cases registered. This privilege unfortunately is not available to a common citizen who avoids approaching the police unless it is inevitable.

It is apparent that the IPS leadership at the top, whose responsibility it is to reform police functioning, has not been able to do so. It is a fact that the political interference has been increasingly hampering the police functioning and many of the states have failed to implement the police reforms mandated by the Supreme Court ruling in ‘Prakash Singh’ case. However, this cannot be treated as an alibi for the failure of IPS leaders to reform those aspects which are within their authority and for which there is very limited requirement of funds, if at all.

The problem starts with the method of recruitment of IPS leaders—the very process of selection through the multistage civil services examination. While the examination and subsequent interview process tests the theoretical knowledge of candidates, the system has no means to assess the aptitude of candidates for policing job. Further, the selection from amongst very large numbers after clearing multiple stages of the competitive examination appears to fill most of them with a sense of superiority and complacency. It fills most of them with a sense that they have achieved all that they had to. It may, however, be noted that qualifying for the civil services examination is tough only because of the large number of candidates appearing in the examination for limited number of seats. The subjects that are available as optional for the examination have no connection with the subsequent roles and duties of a bureaucrat for performing various functions in the government, especially the policing.

The candidates who qualify the examination to become IPS (or other services for that matter) do not appear to have any further motivation left to excel professionally and reform the policing systems. The lack of motivation is exemplified by a report published in the Times of India on 8 July 2018 which prominently reported that 119 of the 122 IPS trainee officers had failed in their final examination. It is interesting to note that the authorities gave awards even to those trainees who had failed in some important professional subjects. These trainees had failed to clear the subjects most important for policing viz Evidence Act, Criminal Procedure Code, Indian Penal Code, and Forensic Science. Not only this, they had also failed in most of the outdoor physical activities. It is difficult to imagine officers failing in basic professional subjects while carrying out their assigned responsibilities efficiently and leading their men from the front. Hopefully, this was a one of a case and not a regular feature.

The IPS officers are put through limited field training at thanas during their training. However, the limited exposure is not adequate to enable them to understand the nitty-gritties of ground-level policing. The exposure also is inadequate for them to identify and rectify the systemic flaws in policing. Further, even before they have obtained adequate experience, they invariably try and get moved laterally to other organisations, especially the armed forces under the Central government on deputation. The arrangement of IPS being designated as an All India Service therefore impedes enhancement of efficiency of the policing system and deprives the policing system from benefitting from the extensive knowledge that an IPS officer has acquired in order to qualify.

The police officers are also hamstrung by large-scale political interference in police functioning. The first lesson that an IPS officer thus exposed to politicians early on in their career—with honourable exceptions—learns is to manage politicians and in due course, take advantage of their proximity for self-advancement.

The core policing, thus left to subordinate officers, leads to the type of exploitation of common masses that we witness all around us. The politician-police-criminal nexus results in the inability of the police to properly investigate cases and thus resort to what is euphemistically termed as ‘encounters’ and proliferation, as well as idolisation of so-called encounter specialists. Police in India headed by the IPS continues to behave in the same manner as the erstwhile Imperial police and treat common people as subjects. 

Close affinities with politicians also result in the police as well as bureaucracy getting divided in separate political camps. Officers who do not identify with the political party in power look for greener pastures through lateral movement on central deputation. This is where the Central Armed Forces (Border Security Force, Central Reserve Police Force, Indo-Tibetan Border Police, Sashastra Seema Bal, Central Industrial Security Force) come handy as these forces are deployed all over the country and provide the IPS officers to get a home posting or a posting to a metro where they can spend time with their families. 

It is a fact that most of the posts at the level of deputy inspector general of police (DIG) (which can be termed ‘semi operational’) reserved for IPS officers remain vacant in forces like BSF, CRPF, ITBP etc, as these involve postings to remote areas besides operational commitments. On the contrary, such posts in forces like the CISF and SSB rarely remain vacant. Availability of large manpower and other resources with these Central Armed Forces is another reason for IPS officers not wanting to yield space to the cadre officers to lead these organisations, thus preventing utilisation of the vast operational and supervisory experience of these cadre officers at policy formulation levels.

The CAPF (General Administration) Act 2026 is thus an instrument to ensure control of these large forces by the IPS officers. The Act does in no manner enhance national security. The Act also restores the status of reservation of posts for IPS officers in these forces which was curtailed to some extent by the Supreme Court by ordering that deputation of IPS officers to the posts up to the level of Inspector General be gradually done away with in two years. All the reasons cited for enactment of the act viz. IPS being an all India service, necessity for coordination between states and intelligence have been argued in the courts during the prolonged litigation and found to be irrelevant. The legal luminaries have opined that the Act is unconstitutional and liable to be struck down once challenged.

This is an era of specialisation and it is high time something is done. The Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) are specialised forces with a large cadre of their own. These cadres have by now gained adequate expertise within their own operational domain and the rationale for continuation of IPS leadership of these forces no longer exists. The Act is certain to be challenged in appropriate courts and likely to be struck down. The Act only helps delay what is inevitable i.e., handing over the baton to the cadre officers of these large forces.

top & above MILITANTS ATTACK AT CRPF ; itbp33

The IPS leadership would do well to focus on reforming the policing at grassroots level. While the police reforms is a much wider subject and several measures can be suggested, the recommendations are far too many to be covered by this piece. The government, however, must urgently ensure that the IPS officers are shifted laterally only after they have gained enough ground policing experience. An effective and speedy system of rewards and punishments must also be put in place to ensure that erring IPS officers do not keep riding up the ladder and are made accountable to the system instead. 

The IPS leadership has their task cut out. Police must gain confidence and trust of the public so that it can truly become a ‘Service’ rather than a ‘Force’.