POLICE AND ADMINISTRATION

The police basically is a backup force of the state administration. Its primary

functions are from en arriere. It is the backbone of the state administration. The police

is the enforcer of the rules and laws of the land and safeguards its compliance by all. For

this reason, the police can be rightly called as the guardian of the state administration.

State administration would be edentate sans the police with none to keep people on the

right sides of the rules and laws of the administration and make the state administration

more than mere paper-work. Even for the hoi polloi, administration is mostly police

functions and nothing in state administration holds its attention as much as what the

police does. The police is the most visible and the most obvious state functionary for

them, by its striking uniform and prim mien in addition to its availability as the dernier

ressort of the state administration. The police forms the cutting-edge of the statecraft.

The police functions as both the enforcer of the country’s laws and as the investigator of

the crimes. Ergo, the police both precedes and succeeds the law enforcement process and

ipso facto encompasses the whole gamut of the state legal system. The very fact that no

folds and rumples of the state administration are excluded from the field of the police

reveals that the range and scope of the policing is as wide as the administration itself and

often exceeds it. Take away the police, the state administration crumbles and collapses

like a messy mass without backbone. The sine qua non of the police in the statecraft is a

widely recognised fact among the scholars as well as the plebeian.

 2

The inevitability of the police in the statecraft also renders it the most abused

setup in the spectrum of the tools of governance. Control over the levers of running the

police organisation is considered to be a significant privilege in the realm of state

administration. The explains the range of influence peddling and prolate pressures on

police transfers and keen concours among politicians and others to befriend the police.

The significance of the police lies in the lowest nature of the work it does in

contrast to the highest degree of awe and weight it commands among politicians,

administrators and the general public. The esteem, however, worked only to the

detriment of the police organisation. The propinquity to pamper the police while helped

the growth and expansion of the organisation, it certainly spoiled the police setup and

crumbled its professional value system. The development is obvious in post-

independent era for the simple reason that the propensity to paper the police saw

abnormal rise after the country’s reign came to people’s hands and politicking and

political cabals became the rule of the game. While friendly police became valuable

assets to politicians in the chess-board of the country’s politics, it became the mainstay of

the administration with the gradual fall in the skill and acumen of running the

administration. The police, which once in pre-independent days was basically a force to

keep the freedom fighters at bay and maintain law and order, became the alter ego of the

governance sinsyne.

THE POLICE AND THE CIVILIAN AUTHORITY:

 3

The root of the problem lies in the civilian control of the police; this control

renders the police liable to function at the pleasure of the civilian authorities against

whom also the police are required to proceed as required by its professional ethics

relentlessly in case of commission of criminal acts. This is a strange position in a

disciplined organisation in which absolute obedience to masters in the most

sanctimonious obligation. Thus the police finds itself in an unenviable position of

being absolutely obedient to its political and civil masters, antilogous to being ever-ready

professionally to proceed against to put them in the gaol. This is an impossible position

for the police and against the tenets of the human nature. But, this impossibly

contrarious functions are expected from the police The problem is overcome by

advanced countries like the United Kingdom by strict adherence to the chain of

command with the head of the organisation responsible to the laws of the country while

civilian authority has to be contented with the administrative control of the police. The

safeguard is yet to seep into the police system of democratic Indian.

THE POLICE AND THE MAGISTERIAL POWERS

However, complete insulation of the police from the civilian control may not be a

healthy development per se in a democratic rule. Here, the need of check over a

function through the bifurcation of operation and control processes in related job a la the

bifurcation of accounts and audit functions in accounts department come to the fore. The

police au fond is arms and muscle of the administration; it basically is an operational

 4

wing of the administration. It is only the watchdog of the administration. This locus

standi of the police imprimis denies it any job, related with administrative decisions and

assessments. The police is there to obey the orders of the administrative machinery

above it to exercise control over it. A watchdog perforce indicates a master to rein in.

This nature of the police functions necessitates administrative control over it in the use

of force and other enforcement activities. This is the backdrop of magisterial powers

being denied to the police except where police commissionerates are organised. The

demand of the police to invest it with the magisterial powers is a corpus of the ongoing

dispute. The matter continues to be a contentious issue between the police and the civil

administration and a major source of dissatisfaction in the police force. The civil

administration is resisting a toute force any attempts to do away the magisterial powers

from its hand in favour of the police, it be in promulgating preventive orders or issuing

search warrants or conducting inquest proceedings or initiating externment proceedings

or initiating preventive proceedings or ordering the use of force, to name only a few. The

argument of the police is that the denial of the magisterial powers which are exercised by

officers as low as Tahsildars in the civil administration is a preposterous step sans any

rational basis and suggests lack of trust in the police organisation. The denial of the

magisterial powers to the police has nothing to do with trust or lack of it a la audit

control over accounts function does not suggest lack of trust in accounts. The police

have forgotten that the civilian control over the police is in step with well established

principles of administration and functions as a safeguard to the hoi polloi against the

dangerous overstepping or overzealous use of police powers, potential of bringing

destruction including death. Use of force by whomever it be, has a tendency to exceed
 5

the limits of requirement and the plebeian has to be protected from such possibilities.

Ergo, the magisterial control over the police. It is a professional requirement in sound

administration rather than an issue of who is more trustworthy. The resistance of the civil

administration to the demands of the police for the magisterial powers is justified to that

extent. The police commissionerates are special organisations for special circumstances

requiring intensive policing under the closer scrutiny of the government in charge of civil

authorities. Yet, both magisterial powers and the police powers being invested in the

same hand requiries lots of explanation to be a convincing administrative arrangement.

PROFESSIONAL POLICING

In professional terms, insulation of the police only implies insulation from the

political control of the police functions. Neither the magisterial control over the police

functions nor the administrative control of the police force by the civil authorities come

under the meaning of this concept. The symbion between the magisterial control and the

policing functions in one hand and between and administrative control and the

organisational buildup on the other hand is essential for a healthy police setup. The

symbion should stop here. Nothing more. When it comes to policing by the police per se,

when policing operations demand professional decisions, it should perspicaciously be

professional police decisions sans outside interferences in any form. The police

organisation has to be built up as a system to achieve this essential goal to make policing

a professional, convincing and creditable job wherein there would be no scope for any
 6

outside interferences in policing with the highest authority in the setup being responsible

only to the rules and laws framed for the purpose a la the policing system in Britain.

JUDICIARY AND THE POLICE

The position of the police as the enforcer of the laws of the country gives it an

important place in the judicial system of the country in enforcement of laws, preventive

measures and investigation of crimes and provides it a strategic relationship with the

dispenser of laws namely the judiciary. Though the judiciary has absolutely no say in

the organisational matters of the police force, it, if it so desires and have adequate

resources to do it, can have absolute control over the police functions as the police au

fond is the enforcer of laws and the judiciary is the interpreter and dispenser of the laws

and the synergy between the two functions perforce implies absolute subordination of the

police functions to the judicial review. However, this may not be the case in practice for

several reasons. One is the concept of judicial restraint. Another is the constraints within

which the judiciary functions. The other is the disinclination of the judiciary to interfere

with the executive functions of the police unless circumstances compel it to do so to

discharge its cardinal responsibility of upholding the rule of law and justice in the

country.

In the spectrum of the state administration, the police enjoys or suffers a rather

polemic position defying many principles of the statecraft like the insulation of

legislature, executive and judiciary in the machinery of the state governance or the
 7

compatibility between the constitutional rights invested with the importance enjoyed by

a government organisation in the state administration. The police organisation on the

other hand is the best example of the unity of state administration, of the synergy of

various organs of the state governance. It, as an enforcer of laws, investigator of crimes

and an apparatus of state security, share a lever with all the pockets of the statecraft and

acts as the spinal chord of the government by coordinating the functions of the

legislature, the executive and the judiciary in establishing the rule of law. Its bonds with

the executive and the judiciary are equally strong and act as a powerful link between the

two powerful sings of the government. It is a string that binds disparate wings and

organs of the government together and give it a sense of oneness and belonging while

itself remains en arriere. This explains the sine qua non of the police in state

administration while denying it a ranking place as a governing body sui juris like many

other organs of the state administration. The police as a government agency represents

the driving force of the executive and the controlling device of the judiciary. It is the

working muscle of the government. It represents the law of the country and therefore

ultimately responsible to the laws of the country. While it is part of the executive, its

subordination to the judiciary and responsibility towards the law of the country raise it

above the scope of the executive functions. While it is part of the judiciary, its position as

a handmaid of the executive, spreads its role above the scope of the judiciary. Ergo, the

police is a government agency that performs functions both within and above the scope of

the executive and judiciary as well as the legislature. The police is a government agency

that performs functions both within and above the scope of the executive and judiciary as

well as the legislature. The police is part of all these wings of the government and
 8

subordinate of each to them while outgrow each of them in professional discharge of its

responsibilities. What is required is the realisation of this sui generis position of the

police and preparing itself mentally to discharge these cardinal responsibilities in

compatibility with the professional requirements.