Representation in India’s police forces

Source: The post is based on the article “Representation in India’s police forces” published in The Hindu on 7^th April 2023.

Syllabus: GS 2 – Social Justice

Relevance: Findings of India Justice Report 2022.

News: India Justice Report 2022 has been recently released.

What are the findings of the report for the police in India?

Overall Performer: Overall, the Telangana police have bagged the top rank among States while West Bengal has come last.

Overall Vacancies: The overall police vacancies increased from 20.3% of the sanctioned strength to 22.1% between January 2020 and January 2022.

Vacancies for Police constables: West Bengal was the worst performer among large and mid-size States with vacancies amounting to 44.1% of the sanctioned strength.

Kerala was at the top with constable vacancies making up 4.6% of the sanctioned strength.

Vacancies for Police officers: Bihar has the highest percentage of vacancies at 53.8% as against the sanctioned strength.

Must Read: The Just In Justice – A detailed report on the legal system shows how and why the poor are its biggest victims

How have States performed in fulfilling their quotas for Women, SC and ST communities in the Police?

Karnataka was the only State to meet its SC, ST, and Other backward classes quotas.

Scheduled Caste

Police Officers: Among large and mid-sized States, Gujarat at 131% was the best performer in terms of the percentage of actual SC police officers to its reservation quota while Uttar Pradesh came last with 43% SC officers against its quota.

Police Constables: Karnataka had 116% of SC constables against its quota, while Haryana had the lowest at 63%.

Small States: As for small States, Goa and Sikkim were the best performers for the percentage of SC officers and constables, respectively.

Scheduled Tribes

Police Officers: Karnataka, at 176%, was the best performer on the police officer level, going beyond its reserved ratio.

Police Constables: Bihar fulfilled its quota by 278%, while Punjab came in last in large and medium States at 0.01%.

Women 

Most States have their own specific quotas for the number of women required in the police force.

For instance, six UTs and nine States have a target of 33% reservation for women while it varies from Bihar’s 35% to 10% in Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Tripura. Five States/UTs, including Kerala and Mizoram, have no reservations.

As per the findings, no State which had the 33% criteria, managed to meet it and it will take another 24 years to have 33% women in police forces across States.

However, among large and medium States, Andhra Pradesh which reserves 33% of overall police posts for women, performed the best with 21.8%. Jharkhand was the worst performer with its share of women in police being just 6.2%.

In small States, Himachal Pradesh was at the top with 14% while Tripura came in last with just 5.3%. Among Union Territories, Ladakh had 28.3% women in police, while Jammu and Kashmir had just 3.3%.

Source: The Hindu

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