Police and security reforms

The first principle

The police are the first and most constant face of the state's security: a terror plot, a riot or a drug network is usually first noticed, or missed, at a police station. Central forces and agencies can reinforce the police but cannot replace them, because they lack local knowledge and the daily law and order role. So internal security rests on State police forces, and police reform is security reform. Reform must also make the police answer to law rather than to whoever holds power, since a force that serves a party loses the public trust on which intelligence depends.

The core

Police as a State subject

• The Seventh Schedule divides the field. Public order (List II, Entry 1) and police, including railway and village police (List II, Entry 2), are State subjects, so each State raises, pays and commands its own force. The Union may deploy its armed forces and the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) in a State in aid of civil power under List I, Entry 2A, added by the Forty second Amendment in 1976, and must protect each State against internal disturbance under Article 355.
• Parliament still writes the rules the police apply. Criminal law, criminal procedure and evidence are in the Concurrent List (List III, Entries 1, 2 and 12), so the new criminal laws of 2023 bind every State police force.
• Most State police were long governed by the Police Act 1861, written after the revolt of 1857 to keep order for a colonial government rather than to serve citizens. Several States have since passed their own Police Acts, but the old command structure, with the district police answerable to the executive, largely remains.

The Prakash Singh judgment, 2006

• The case. Prakash Singh, a former Director General of Police, filed a petition in 1996 asking the Supreme Court to enforce police reform after the National Police Commission (1977 to 1981) and later committees had been ignored. On 22 September 2006 the Court issued seven directives, binding until States passed new laws.
• The seven directives. A State Security Commission to lay down policy and keep the government from exerting unwarranted influence; selection of the Director General of Police (DGP) from the three senior most officers empanelled by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), with a minimum tenure of two years; a two year minimum tenure for field officers from the Inspector General of a zone to the officer in charge of a police station; separation of investigation from law and order, starting in cities of ten lakh or more; a Police Establishment Board to decide transfers, postings and promotions of officers of the rank of Deputy Superintendent and below; Police Complaints Authorities at State and district level to hear complaints of serious misconduct; and a National Security Commission at the Union level to select the chiefs of the central police forces.
• The 2018 clarification. In July 2018 the Court barred the appointment of acting DGPs and told States to send names to the UPSC at least three months before a vacancy.
• The Model Police Act 2006, drafted by a committee under Soli Sorabjee, offered States a modern law built on the same ideas: a police accountable to law, functional autonomy, and service to citizens.

Dimensions

• Security. Terror plots, left wing extremism and organised crime are local before they are national, so a weak police station is a gap in national security, as the poorly armed first responders of Mumbai in 2008 showed.
• Federal. The Union funds modernisation and frames the criminal law, but States command the police, so reform depends on States accepting limits on their own control; this is why the Prakash Singh directives are still unevenly followed.
• Political. Control over transfers and postings is a source of power for the government of the day, which is why States have resisted security commissions and establishment boards.
• Rights and trust. Custodial violence, delays and corruption push citizens away, and a public that distrusts the police will not share information.
• Capacity and technology. Vacancies, long hours, poor housing and few forensic experts limit what any law can achieve, while crime now leaves a digital trail that demands data systems and cyber skills (see the cybersecurity note).

In practice

The new criminal laws from a security angle

The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (BSA), passed in December 2023, replaced the Indian Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Indian Evidence Act from 1 July 2024.

• Terrorism in the ordinary penal law. Section 113 of the BNS defines a terrorist act, covering threats to the unity, integrity, sovereignty, security or economic security of India; an officer not below the rank of Superintendent of Police decides whether a case is registered under this section or under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
• Organised crime. Section 111 punishes organised crime, a continuing unlawful activity by a syndicate, such as extortion, contract killing, land grabbing, trafficking in people, drugs or arms and serious cyber and economic offences, and Section 112 covers petty organised crime such as theft, snatching and cheating by gangs.
• Sedition replaced. Section 152 punishes acts that endanger the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India, in place of the sedition offence that the Supreme Court had put on hold in 2022.
• Procedure. The BNSS makes a visit by forensic experts compulsory at the scene of offences punishable with seven years or more, allows trial in absentia of proclaimed offenders who abscond, lets courts attach the proceeds of crime, requires search and seizure to be filmed, and allows handcuffs for those accused of offences such as organised crime and terrorist acts. The BSA treats electronic records as documentary evidence.

Modernisation and data

• Modernisation of Police Forces. The Union has helped States buy weapons, vehicles, communications and buildings since 1969-70; an umbrella scheme of Rs 26,275 crore for 2021-22 to 2025-26, approved in February 2022, also funds security related expenditure in Jammu and Kashmir, the North East and areas affected by left wing extremism, and forensic capacity.
• CCTNS and ICJS. The Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS), approved in 2009 and run by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), links police stations to a national database of crimes and criminals. The Interoperable Criminal Justice System (ICJS) joins it to forensic laboratories, prosecution, courts and prisons, and its second phase was approved in February 2022 at Rs 3,375 crore for 2022-23 to 2025-26.

Intelligence reform

• The Kargil Review Committee (1999), chaired by K Subrahmanyam, found that the intrusions of 1999 were not detected in time and that agencies neither shared nor jointly assessed what they knew.
• The Group of Ministers (2001), chaired by L K Advani, built on its four task forces on intelligence, internal security, border management and defence management. Its recommendations created the Defence Intelligence Agency, the National Technical Research Organisation, the Multi Agency Centre and the one border one force rule, and proposed a Chief of Defence Staff, created only in 2019.

Issues and way forward

• Directives on paper. Many States complied in form, by passing Acts or orders that keep the government's control over the commissions and boards, and the monitoring committee under Justice K T Thomas reported widespread non compliance in 2010; the remedy is for States to adopt the directives in substance, with independent members on the commissions and complaints authorities.
• Investigation tied to law and order. The same officers guard a rally and investigate a murder, so investigation suffers; a separate investigation wing with its own staff and forensic support is the fix the Supreme Court, the Second Administrative Reforms Commission and the Model Police Act all asked for.
• Weak police stations. Vacancies, few women officers and poor training leave the first line thin, so recruitment should be time bound and training should cover cyber crime, forensics and community policing.
• Federal crimes. Terrorism and organised crime cross State lines, and proposals such as the Malimath Committee's (2003) to treat them as federal crimes led partly to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in 2008; better sharing through CCTNS, ICJS and the National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) is the practical route.
• The new laws need capacity. Compulsory forensics and electronic evidence demand laboratories, trained experts and digital storage, and these must grow as fast as the law expects; the National Forensic Sciences University, set up by an Act of 2020, is one step.
• Intelligence still lacks a law. More than two decades after Kargil, the intelligence agencies have no statutory charter or parliamentary oversight; a law with a committee of Parliament sworn to secrecy is the long standing proposal.

Common confusions

• Public order and law and order. Public order is the wider idea of the life of the community going on undisturbed, while law and order covers individual breaches of the law; the Supreme Court has drawn this line in preventive detention cases.
• State Security Commission and National Security Commission. The first is in each State and shields the State police from political pressure; the second was meant for the Union, to select chiefs of the central police forces.
• CCTNS and ICJS. CCTNS is the police network; ICJS connects it to courts, prisons, prosecution and forensics.
• Section 113 of the BNS and the UAPA. Both cover terrorism, but the UAPA also bans organisations and designates individuals as terrorists and has stricter bail rules, so serious cases are usually registered under it.
• Kargil Review Committee and the Group of Ministers. The committee diagnosed the failure in 1999, while the Group of Ministers turned the diagnosis into a reform plan in 2001.

For the exam

• Keyword bank: police as a State subject, List II Entries 1 and 2, Article 355, Prakash Singh directives, State Security Commission, Police Establishment Board, Police Complaints Authority, separation of investigation, Model Police Act 2006, terrorist act (BNS Section 113), organised crime (BNS Section 111), compulsory forensics, CCTNS and ICJS, Kargil Review Committee, intelligence oversight.
• Previous year questions: Practise the previous year questions on this topic →
• Use in an answer:
  • Introduction with data: The Union's umbrella scheme for police modernisation, worth Rs 26,275 crore for 2021-22 to 2025-26, shows that a State subject has become a shared security concern (PIB, 2022).
  • Introduction with a judgement: In Prakash Singh v Union of India (2006) the Supreme Court gave seven directives to free the police from political control and make it accountable, yet most States have followed them only in form.
  • Conclusion: The new criminal laws give the police modern tools against terror and organised crime, but they will work only if forensic capacity, training and autonomy grow with them.
  • Conclusion: A police force independent in operations, accountable in conduct and trusted by citizens is the foundation every central force and agency builds on.