ORGANISATIONAL CHALLENGES

OF THE POLICE

It is India’s good fortune that its fabric of law and order withstood the
onslaught of growing complexity of the Indian society lest fragile is its system of
policing. The fact that the police systems in a few neighboring countries of Asia
and Africa are worse cannot be a solace as the political, social and economical
structures forming the cornerstones of those countries have tout a fait different
backgrounds and value systems from ours. India is a crucible wherein the
dynamics and relevance of democracy in the third world are experimented with.
The Indian police system must necessarily meet the latitant aspirations of the
democracy in fulfilling its desinent objective of maintaining internal order arid
security. This dimension added to the problems of policing in India. The Indian
polity confronts its police with ever-greater challenges while affording it an
increasingly limited wherewithal to do so. The Indian police system dodders
while taken on ride by the shocks of the growing complexity of the Indian society
and its relevance to society is luxated in the seemingly unending luctation for
relevance. The tenor of the setback lies in the failure to foresee and continuously
keep the system one step ahead.
The hazard of the Indian-police lies in this immobility of its organizational
structure. The existing police system is utterly devoid of any adjustment
mechanism that keeps it relevant to the zeitgeist. A time-to-time review and
concomitant updating of the police organisation become sine qua non the
circumstances. A systematic study of the policing in India with an adequate
pernoctation to screen the latest researches and findings in relevant fields of social
and political systems, science and technology in reorienting the police
organisation and administration is an essential parameter in the vital exercise.
A police setup worth its salt should meet the specific needs of the policing.
The police setup must necessarily be raucle in its frame to be capable of
absorbing the shocks to which it would often be exposed. Secondly, motive
factors should be substructed in the body of the organisation as sound
motivation alone can make policing a purposeful activity. This should be

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reinforced with external motive factors that can be infused to the organisation
e re nata. Thirdly, the system should be organized so as to generate optimism and
confidence. Another important aspect that should weigh in evolving an effective
police organisation is evolving a mechanism whereby every police officer or unit
is put in charge of a specific job matching his or its competence and aptitude. An
element of levity should be brought to policing so that the work in hand can be
attended to with genuine involvement by each police officer. Another strategic
principle of a healthy police organisation is having absolute faith and giving full
responsibilities to subordinates with a concomitant reward and punishment
system that follow at the heels. Any attempt to disturb the balance of faith, full
responsibility and reward and punishment system is certain to fell the
organisation into desuetude. The extant conception of collective responsibility
through a chain of command has gone passe by its propensity to demotivate the
real workers due to the corrupt ambitions of those at higher levels in the chain
of command. Policing has grown of late to be such an independent field of
specialisation that it is touts de force impossible for a mortal being to be proficient
in even a single aspect of policing. It is rather a folly to fancy a police officer as
being able to handle all aspects of policing though at different times. Hence, the
need of specialization-oriented policing. The present managerial world is
increasingly realizing the importance of human resources as organizational
inputs. Unless all-out efforts are made to inhaust to police the creme de la creme of
the country with exceptional attributes of probity, intelligence and commitment
and impart eximious and purposeful training to bring out the best of each, no
efforts at updating the organisation can bring about a sempiternal
transformation in the setup. The fact that policing can be successful only with
popular cooperation focuses the attention of the police organisation on the needs
of building up its image. Although efforts are already afoot towards building up
the image of the police, the depths of the possibilities are yet to be fully explored
and exploited. A scientific approach in this score will make policing tanto uberior.
Also, the scope for scholarly and intellectual activities in policing will make
policing multi-dimensional and add to its effectiveness. The fremit reception
given to intellectual activities in some quarters of policing may not go down too
well with the future police planners. The future police organisation and
administration should cater to the need of intellectual activities.
The present police organisation and administrative system have to be
overhauled in the near future as the ineffectiveness of the extant system becomes
increasingly obvious with the flaws in the edifice starting to gape wider. The areas
wherein restructuring may be desirable and the thrusts sine qua non to stuff the

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hiatus valde deflendus to have a featous police setup, quite capable of facing the
challenges of the future are discussed tout court below.
EXCLUSION OF SOCIAL LEGISLATIONS
The proclivity of weighing the police with reinforcement of all types of
legislations has become a major hazard to effective policing. While the
proliferation of legislations in independent India made it impossible even to keep
track of their numbers, it is senseless to expect the police as being able to enforce
them all. The stupendous task of enforcing these legislations adversely affects the
effectiveness of the police and corrodes its credibility. This is emphatically so with
social legislations which pass out of our legislative houses sans cohibition. These
progressive measures are inherently controversial in nature and their
enforcement by the police weakens its credibility as an agency of serious business
and peremptory order. It is plauditory to conceive of the police as a vehicle of
progressive measures, but in the process, is certain to put both its credibility and
professionalism into jeopardy as the social legislations lack depth and gravity to
enforce them and assiduous enforcement may ricochet as an outcry of
harassment and high-handedness. It is not in the interest of the country to expose
its police to such civil contecks and suffer it thereby.
India can have an independent social policing system under the social welfare
ministry to which police officers with a flair for progressive measures may be
deputed. The social policing system as a professional enforcement agency of the
social welfare ministry can do an effective job in enforcing progressive social
legislations with all their nuances, by fully devolving on it while saving the police
organisation from the embarrassment of handling issues to which it is not
equipped either mentally, professionally or organizationally. This measure will
exeme the police organisation from unwarranted pressures and enhances its
legitimacy in handling serious security and law and order issues.
SPECIALISATIONS IN POLICING
The growth of police functions as adnated to present life-style of increasing
complexity is enormous of late with policing slinking to the vitals of all streaks
of social and nonsocial living. Policing has become a high-tech affair these days
with scopes for further advancements. Each major activity of policing like
maintenance of order, investigation of crimes, collection of intelligence and
security-operations have assumed such an independent status of nonesuch
expertise and professionalism that these fields being inhered is neither desirable
nor feasible. Nor in the circumstances, does shifting a functionary from one field
of expertise to the other help his overall performance. Anfractuosity in any one
of these fields of specialization for life is becoming a requisite as time goes by.

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The futuristic policing of India must have its subordinate police as

professionals in a given field of specialization, say maintenance of order, crime
investigation, intelligence collection or security operation with synergy
manifesting only at higher levels. So, India may have independent law and order
police, detective police, special police and security police, each separately
recruited and trained for professionalism and expertise in their respective fields.
Officers from all these specialized fields should be eligible to rise t general
policing at higher levels on the basis of a pro rata quota system for promotions.
PARALLEL CRIME ADMINISTRATION
“The increased preoccupation of the police with law and order and security
issues in view of the growing cataclysmic activities in the country has adversely
affected effective, crime administration of late. Police stations have become
registering stations as far as crime administration is concerned. The time of the
local police is fordone with immediate issues of law and order and V.I.P. security,
and in the process, crime investigation has become a casualty. The process may
further deteriorate as security and law and order problems increase in coming
years. Neither the crime staff at subordinate levels nor the supervisory staff at
district and higher levels, in the melee, has the will or the resources to divert to
crime investigation while the crime rate in the country is assuming dangerous
proportions.
Crime investigations should not be allowed to suffer because of disorder and
insecurity in the country, as otherwise, a vicious circle may develop wherein
disorder and insecurity lead to fall in investigation and flabby investigation in turn,
to patulous disorder and insecurity. This triste development may be effectively
dealt-with by an independent crime setup, parallel to the law and order outfit.
The crime outfit should be responsible for the investigation of criminal cases
and function under an Inspector General of Police who is responsible to the
police chief, with a crime Deputy Inspector General of Police in each range. Each
district may have a crime Superintendent of Police with the necessary number of
detective Deputy Superintendents of Police, detective Inspectors, Sub-
Inspectors and constabulary to assist while only Sub-Inspectors and above are
empowered t investigate cases. The Sub-Inspectors will be attached to various
police stations with powers to register criminal cases and investigate only petty
cases. The crime Superintendent of Police refers criminal cases of his district for
investigation to Police Inspectors or Deputy Superintendents of Police, coming
under him, on the basis of the gravity of the cases and take up exceptionally grave
cases for personal investigation. The crime Deputy Inspectors General of Police
may take up exceptionally sensational cases in his range for personal investigation.

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The crime outfit in a district must run parallel to the law and order outfit of the
district.
An independent crime outfit in district and state may exquisitely behove to
a futuristic police setup by giving crime investigation a boost and insuring it
against the peracute pangs of organizational maladies of the future.
CONTROL ROOM-CENTERED POLICING
The compulsions of urban policing are strikingly different from those of rural
policing. Response time is the hallmark of urban policing where a delay of a few
minutes can make a difference between death and life as criminals and terrorists
with the most sophisticated communication, weapon system and hair-raising
organizational accuracy overawe the police, pitted against them in the course of
their criminal operations. The present police station oriented policing are
incompetent to meet the challenges of the urban criminals either in resources or
in organizational ingine.
Unity, resourcefulness and speed form the spine of urban policing. The
control room-centered policing in urban centers where men and transportation
and latest communication facilities that work round the clock in shifts enables
galvanic operations to tackle law and order problems. All town and cities require
control rooms of appropriate sizes with a control room chief of a befitting rank.
A control room of a metropolitan city having a population of more than fifty
lakhs may be entrusted to a control room chief of the rank of Deputy Inspector
General of police; a city having a population exceeding ten lakhs requires a chief
of the rank of Superintendent of police to its control room; a city of a population
exceeding a lakh may have a control room in charge of a Deputy Superintendent
of Police; a town having a population of more than 20,000 may require an
Inspector to head its control room; and a town with a population of less than
twenty thousand may need a control room under a Sub-Inspector. Each control
room may have four shift-officers of the rank immediately lower in rank; all
subordinate staff of the town or city is kept under the control room’s disposal
on round the clock shifts. The control room should be well connected with
several channels of telephones, wireless sets, mobile telephones and other state-
of-the-art communication equipments to strategic points, mobile vans, task
forces, hospitals, fire force units, civil defence units, neighboring police units and
residences of senior police officers and civil authorities. The control rooms
should be equipped with the latest gadgets and sufficient transportation facilities
for the maintenance of law and order. The law and order unit of the urban area
may be headed by an officer of the rank above the rank of the chief of the control
room.

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This outfit with unlimited resource at its disposal for launching any type of
operation within a few minutes of communication may suffice to meet the
challenges of maintaining law and order in urban areas in the new age.
REORGANISATION OF INTELLIGENCE UNITS
The place of collection and analysis of intelligence and special operations in
policing including security operations, maintenance of law and order and crime
investigation is sui generis as intelligence forms the building blocks of all nuances
of the police operations. The police, operating to collect intelligence, form the
substructure of the edifice of policing of the country. Indian intelligence system
is yet to stand up to the enormous challenges thrown to it and it can nowhere
be compared with its counterparts in developed and even a few developing
countries. Various intelligence outfits of India are often found functioning at
cross-purposes. India should reorganize and strengthen its intelligence outfit if
it is to survive the challenges of the coming age.
The Indian intelligence system should develop unity of purpose and
operation by working under the umbrella of a unified intelligence authority
headed by the union cabinet Secretary with intelligence chiefs of the police and
military as members. The authority should affect a synergy of intelligence
operations through its various wings of internal intelligence, foreign intelligence,
counter-intelligence, military intelligence and security intelligence. Sufficient
attention should be given to infuse entrain in the intelligence system of India and
modernize its methods to raise it to a few degrees closer to the international
standards. The interferences of officialdom should be eradicated from
intelligence operations and a sense of commitment and dedication should be
infused by making intelligence operations a lifelong career.
An Inspector General of police, directly responsible to the state police chief,
should head the state intelligence wing. The intelligence wing should be overall
in charge of intelligence operations, pertaining to security, law and order and
crime in the state.
SPECIALLY TRAINED SECURITY OPERATORS
The ultimate purpose of all police functions is public security. Either it is
intelligence collection or crime investigation or maintenance of law and order-
all roads lead to this single aspiration. Therefore, the security operations form the
crown of policing activities without which all other police operations prove futile
exercises.
The India of the new age will need specially trained battalions of security
operators in every state to take charge of the security of vital installations and
VIPs. Each will work under the supervision of an Inspector General of police,

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responsible to the state police chief. Also, each state police unit will have a small
commando force under the Inspector General of police to meet threats during
emergencies like hijacking, VVIP security under difficult circumstances,
complicated operations against terrorists etc. This special group will be brought
into operation only under exceptionally difficult circumstances on the direct
orders from the state police chief. Otherwise, it will be involved in continuous
commando training of the highest order. The commandos will be well equipped
with the wherewithal of commando operations of the latest order. Only select
officers will be recruited to the group with extra emoluments to make the job
really elite. The commando units of the central government will train the state
commando forces.
The need of commando groups in the state police will be increasingly felt in
future as the menace of terrorism and sabotage grows uninhibited with the future
possibility of peracute methods being accepted as legitimate ways of expressing
political dissent.
IMPROVED MANAGEMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES
The human aspect is the fulcrum of policing. Human comportment teethed
with authority to restrain the human mass forms the essence of police activities.
Policing essentially is human interaction, latitant in unending luctation to smite
criminal and anti-social elements. It is the human quality in the force that
determines its effectiveness and vitality. Therefore, human resource policy in a
police organisation needs careful and gritty handling at the highest possible level.
The present Indian environment of ruthless competitions impleached with a
degringolade of values made human resources management a farce in India. The
wherewithal of human resources management like recruitment, promotions,
transfers, rewards, punishments etc, is no more employed for the maximum
benefit of the organisation. Self-interests have undermined quality and character
and organizational interests are subordinated to personal behoofs. Though this
proclivity is prevalent in all fields in India, of late, its adverse effects are kenspeckle
in police organisation as the line-system of the organisation makes the ingenuity
of human resources management, a factor having direct bearing on the quality
of the policing. While policing is becoming a dynamic part of the governance in
urban areas, with the rise of urban pockets, the damage done by egregious
management of human resources in the police cannot be exaggerated. The
declension may go patulous with the passage of time if frack measures to arrest
the depravation in human resources management are ignored.
Diligent efforts at the highest level in the organisation to create a force
characterized by integrity, commitment and intelligence may be the foremost

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need of a police organisation of the coming age. The prevalence of police

administration over the general administration in the survival of a nation as a
democratic and orderly country may necessitate future changes in recruitment
and service condition rules to attract the very best talents of the country to the
police organisation with extraordinary care to ensure that anything less than the
best with clean antecedents does not step into the organisation.
Once the ingine is inveigled into the fold of the organisation, the ingenerate
need of retaining it in the organisation sans delusions and disappointments and
improving upon its attributes gains added momentum. In the extant system, only
those less than the best join the police organisation; less than satisfactory training
is imparted to them that fail to infuse even elementary professionalism; and the
practical experience in the field emaciates their noble ettles, if any are left alive,
as an improvident fool’s paradise and causes them to fall in line with the
mediocre. Futuristic India may not have an alternative to breaking this vicious
circle for its survival and better managing its human resources by designing a
training programme that makes a budding officer a thorough professional in
policing, reinforces his noble ettles and changes the environment of the police
organisation to inspire a subjacent faith in the right value system.
TIME-BOUND PROMOTIONS
The system of assessment of a subordinate’s work for promotion has fallen
into utter desuetude and dangerous misuse by the prevalent corrupt atmosphere.
India, in the interest of its future policing may do well to extricate the prospects
of career developments like promotions from subjective assessments of corrupt
influences by ensuring two periodical promotions in a time scale of twenty-five
years. So, every Police Constable retires minimum as an Assistant Sub-Inspector
of Police, a Sub-Inspector as a Deputy Superintendent of Police and an Indian
Police Service Officer as an Inspector General of Police. The present incidence
of most of the Police Constables retiring as Police Constables may not go well
with the concept of ex aequo society of futuristic India and pose a threat to the
health of the police organisation in the environment of increased awakening of
the 21st century. The officers of the Indian Police Service may be posted on first
appointment as Superintendents of Police to make the service more attractive,
though not to districts directly and the dual recruitments at the rank as in vogue
now require to be stopped to make police recruitment meaningful.
Officers in exceptional cases may have avenues for special promotions in
addition to the two, provided in a time scale of twenty-five years, on the basis
of written examination and on an overall assessment of their career of twenty-
five years by high-powered committees formed for the purpose. The

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promotion of constabulary in exceptional cases to the ranks of PSIs and above

should be screened by the Police Board of the State; the promotion of PSIs as
Superintendents of Police and above should be screened by the All India Police
Authority and the promotion of IPS Officers as Director General of Police and
above by a Central Cabinet Committee headed by the Prime Minister. This
arrangement will ensure fearless and professional policing sans complaisance to
corrupt elements, particularly when the prospects of corrupt practices of
repriming professionals of probity and hoisting flaccid complaisant to
prominence are certain to be in excelsis in the new age.
REMOVAL OF CONSTABULARY
The constabulary that forms the backbone and the cutting-edge of Indian
policing and wields real authority over the populace is a lowly paid, modestly
educated, non-elite mass of uniformed workers. The authority they wield makes
them fearsome while their low status in society sperres them from commanding
empathy, respect and legitimacy. The fearsome authority sans empathy, respect
and legitimacy decidedly proves a deadly substructure for an organisation and
people certainly resent an organisation with this unhealthy attribute. Nor the
truculent authority, invested in officials of an intra-mural enlightenment and
responsibility can ensure its comme il faut exercise. This foible in the extant setup
manifests as increased hazards to glib policing as the complexity of its challenges
thickens in coming years, if no remedial measures are undertaken belive.
The Indian police of the 21st century will require Sub-Inspectors with their
present scale of education and status in society as the primary unit of policing at
the cutting-edge level with no policing powers and responsibilities devolved
beneath this level. The constabulary up to the level of the Assistant Sub-
Inspectors of Police should be limited to the duties of menial assistants without
police powers and responsibilities. This will require a huge army of Sub-
Inspectors in the Indian police while the constabulary stands to be severely
spruced in strength.
With the removal of the constabulary from the police hierarchy, the Sub-
Inspectors will besort to the lowest rank in the police setup. Each police station
works under a Police Inspector assisted by a host of Sub-Inspectors, performing
all subordinate functions of the policing including beat patrolling and
investigation of minor cases under this dispensation.
PROFESSIONAL TRAINING FACILITIES
The chief cause of policing never being a profession in India is the
ineffectiveness of its training facilities. In spite of adequate infrastructures
available for training police officials of various ranks, these centers largely fail to

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meet the quality required to make a recruit a thorough professional. An overhaul

of the extant training facilities in terms of its quality, content and character is
inevitable to keep the Indian police excubant to future challenges. The training
facilities should be made centers of scholarship and research on police subjects
with professionals of national reputation in each subject handling their respective
subjects. The psychology faculty of the centre should endeavor to build character
and infuse right orientation among the recruits. The faculty members of the
training centers should be exceptionally well paid so as to inveigle the best in the
field to join. Army officers must handle outdoor classes. This model helps in
instilling the highest standards and expectations in trainees till they become full-
fledged officers and orient them to become professional police officers, apart
from distancing them from the moderate influences that are herded to handle
police training centers in the present setup. The trainees must be exposed to
police officers as guest speakers, by inviting very senior police officers of the
highest integrity and job standards to deliver talks on specific topics. Separate
professional training courses should be available in the training centers for law
and order police, crime police, intelligence police and security police with scope
for advanced learning with an eye to the latest developments in each respective
field. Latest training methods should be adopted with management, computers
and advanced psychology inter alia as the common subjects of study for all the
courses. The training centers should give the impression of being temples of
advanced studies apart from being so.
PROFESSIONALISM IN POLICING
Policing requires commitment and dedication on the part of its operators.
The principles of faith and responsibility must run invisus through the vitals of the
policing, should it be purposeful and successful. The extant bureaucratic malady
that infested the Indian police setup cohibits healthy policing practices. The police
organisation should be reoriented to develop a professional approach to its
operations with full faith and responsibility as the hallmark of the delegation of
power. The present emphasis on procedures should be shifted to commitment
and result-orientation within the ambit of the rules.
An analytical study of policing, its trends and modem techniques helps to
bring professionalism in policing. Due encouragement for the study of
theoretical aspects of policing and its application in the field through in-service
training will be a welcome step in this direction. If police managers succeed in
inspiring in police officers an interest in theoretical aspects of the policing and its
latest techniques, it would be a kenspeckle leap in awakening Indian police to the
challenges in the future.

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GENTLEMANLY IMAGE
Though efforts have been en train to ameliorate the image of the Indian police
for a long time, nothing substantial could be achieved for amateurish handling
of the affair. The present Indian police managers have their image development
tools limited to issuing occasional press statements when image development has
become a highly advanced field of specialization with unending scope for further
advancements. In view of the considerable significance of the image for
successful police operations, the wherewithal of image building in police
organisation is required to be updated with latest techniques with the help of
professionals in the field.
CHANGE OF UNIFORM
A change in the existing police uniform is an issue to be deeply probed into
to improve the police image. The present khaki uniform of police inspires
resentment, as it is psychologically associated with repression and violence. A
change of police uniform to full white or pleasant colours may prove to be a
measure for the better in removing the negative image of the police. The overall
strategy in selecting a new police uniform should be to infuse a sense of oneness
and quality among the ranks of police and inspiring a psychological disposition
of friendliness, confidence, respect and healthy fear in the public with a
compulsion to see the police as their own people, but invested with the
responsibility of a noble task.
GOOD LIVING STANDARDS
The police organisation functions effectively only when a reasonably good
living standard is made affordable to all ranks of officers, so that they can deal
with antisocial elements from a level of strength and confidence sans the lure of
easy booty, thrown en revanche to a let-off. A low living standard retards the police
image and esteem in society that are the essentials of successful policing. It is more
so in future while more and more of the so-called elite jump into the fray of
criminal activities in an increasingly complicated society.
It may be necessary to make police officers financially bien in comparison to
their counterparts in other services with 30% of their pay paid as risk allowance
and 20% as hazard allowance to compensate job factors. This helps to attract the
best to the fold of the police organisation, apart from protecting them from
financial distractions. A feeling of condign compensation is certain to boost the
commitment and efficiency of the police.
MODERN FACILITIES AND MANAGEMENT TOOLS
The police organisation has seen mushroom growth sans application of
requisite management principles. The major lapse lies in failure to define

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organizational objectives and formulate specific set of actions thereon. For

example, extraneous objectives like creating employment opportunities often
inspire creation of additional posts irrespective of the organizational needs,
which results in corrosion of job contents and thereby morale of the force. Work
often is not allocated on the basis of scientific assessment of the character and
aptitude. The latest equipments purchased a grands frais under modernization
schemes without creating the infrastructure for its operation or analyzing its
relative merits to the organisation, resulted in its being dumped a few days of its
operation while even basic necessities of policing are yet to be met in a few other
quarters. These anomalies prove criant luxuries to a police organisation, sure to
be faced with enormous challenges in the third millennium.
The police organisations of India do well to be featous, well organized and
formulate actions and operations in line with latest management principles and
practices. K may either constitute an efficient cell of management experts to
advice or hire a management consultation firm for guidance. At any rate, the
police organisation of the third millennium should be a far smaller unit than now,
manned by highly committed and capable officers who are paid and looked
after well by the government.
The present policing system in India has too much of paper work with
hundreds of registers maintained in each station or office with tens of forms filled
up in each stage of policing. A detailed analytical study of paper works in policing
may help to considerably reduce paper works and thereby save precious official
man-hours for use in actual police operations.
The modernization of the police force with the latest communication,
transport, weaponry and office equipment system and me simultaneous creation
of the necessary infrastructure for their operation in advance alone besort the
police force to the challenges of elite criminals, armed with latest equipments.
India of the third millennium will require its police force to be equipped with
helicopters as an aide in policing in emergencies. A genuine and effective effort
to achieve modernization ends would be sine qua non for the future policing. A
face-lift to police stations and offices with the latest office equipment and general
facilities will go a long way in creating a psychological atmosphere for effective
policing.
CREATION OF CRIMINAL LAW BOARD
India requires the constitution of a statutory Criminal Law Board as an
advisory body to liaise between the police setup and the union law ministry
regarding criminal laws to facilitate glib policing. The board, as a permanent
body, may have senior most officers of the central government from home and

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law ministries, police and prosecution departments, distinguished humanists and

senior advocates of the Superme Court as members with the union home
minister as its chairman. It must undertake the study of the need of changes in
criminal laws from rime to rime. The board may meet every quarter and discuss
extant criminal laws and their shortcomings in the light of representations
received from officers in the field from the police and prosecution departments
and make proposals for requisite changes in criminal laws e re nata.
WIDENED RESPONSIBILITIES IN CRIME ADMINI-
STRATION
A few glaring anomalies and some erroneous provisions in the extant criminal
laws of India contributed to the easy escapade of criminals from the clutches of
law in many cases and harassment of innocent persons by the police in some
other cases. The loopholes in the criminal laws have to be plugged imprimis if
crime administration has to be effective in India and command a semblance of
respect and confidence of the public.
The police or judicial officer under whose custody a person is kept under
detention should be made responsible by name for the latter’s timely release with
a provision that if detention exceeds the period provided by law, it will make the
concerned officer liable for proceedings for unlawful detention without the
privilege of exemptions for actions performed in official colours, available
under extant laws. Also, all cases of violence and physical outrages committed
in police custody should be made punishable with exemplary penalties by special
legislations. Such extreme measures may bring an end to shocking criminal acts
committed eo nomine policing in some quarters and save the Indian police from
the embarrassment of severe public resentment.
Current bail provisions of the Indian criminal law constitute a source of acute
embarrassment to police officers with criminals, arrested after weeks or months
of stupendous efforts, let off by the judiciary on bail only to facilitate jumping
the bail. All discretions about bail with police and judiciary should be taken away
with only a select few offences of enormous gravity being made non-bailable
wherein neither police nor judiciary can release criminals on bail. This eliminates
the possibility of favours to some criminals and brings mechanical accuracy and
objectivity to bail provisions. This measure may prove to be a trailblazer in
ensconcing criminal laws from misuse during the difficult period ahead.
POLICE COMMISSIONERS IN CITIES
Every city in India with a population of more than a lakh must have an
independent policing unit under a Police Commissioner of a rank befitting the
population of the city; a city with a population up to ten lakhs may have one of

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the rank of Superintendent of police; a city with a population up to 50 lakhs may

have a Deputy Inspector General of Police as the chief and a city with a
population of 50 lakhs or more may have an Inspector General of Police as its
Police Commissioner. The setup of Police Commissionerate gives a sense of
unity and purposefulness to the task of policing, apart from being most suitable
form of setup for urban policing with magisterial powers being invested with
the police to enable prompt action. This setup with empight responsibilities
instills commitment and dedication in policing.
CREATION OF ALL INDIA POLICE AUTHORITY
All maladies of the present policing emanate from the politicians who are only
concerned with winning the next election. Until the police organisation is
extricated from the vile prise of the mediocre politicians, it cannot hope to rise
above the mediocre level of its el patron either in proficiency or in character, as
such mediocrity is wont to permeate downwards in a democratic setup. In the
circumstances, the police organisation with its sensitive responsibilities towards
the maintenance of order and security of the country, cannot afford to submit
to political vagaries.
Though a proposal to extricate precious machinery like the police from the
clutches of the politicians is likely to be met with enormous resistance, it is an
important measure to be undertaken at all costs in the overall interests of the
country. The task may be achieved by creation of an All India Police Authority,
responsible only to the President of India at the national level with regional Police
Boards in states as independent bodies, managing police organisations at the
centre and states. A Supreme Court Judge must head the All India Police
Authority with union home secretary and central cabinet secretary as members
and the senior most police officer of the country as the member-secretary. The
regional Police Board must have a High Court Judge at the helm with home
secretary and state chief secretary as members and the state police chief as its
member-secretary. The arrangement is likely to bring an end to undue
interference in police affairs, thus enabling the police to function in an
independent atmosphere. The Indian police may hope to turn out eximious
work in the new age if these measures are implemented.
Policing as a phenomenon of maintaining order and security in society cannot
afford to be oblivious of the flux in the modem lifestyles. As an integral part of
civil living, policing must prepare itself to amate the increasing complexities of
modem life by modifying its organizational and administrative setups to the
demands that these vicissitudes create. The changes warranted in policing may
either be deciduous or peremptory depending on the nature of the transition in

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society. It is left to police planners to analyze the nature of the flux in the society
and locate the areas where decession from the past practices has become sine qua
non for policing. This should be an ongoing process if policing is to retain its
relevance as the guardian of social discipline. The futuristic challenges of policing
would be pro rata to the twists of the future living. The prospects of Indian
population reaching the mark of a billion and the concomitant luctation of two
billion needy hands to grab a share in the country’s limited resources of food,
shelter, water, clothing, electricity, schooling, employment etc. naturally make life
a cut-throat concours and a ruthless adventure devoid of scruple, human values and
a concern for fellow men. Though the Indian policing system managed
somehow to deal with the vicissitudes till now, the geometric acceleration of the
flux of the coming years may prove to be too much to the extant police setup.
Therefore, it is high time now that we prepare our police organisation and
administration for the future challenges.

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