Context

• Maharastra Government is awaiting for the appointment of DGP.
• The state government, in keeping the Supreme Court directions, will select the next Maharashtra DGP from the three officers.

Proceedure to appoint DGP as per Supreme Court Direction

• In the 2006 Prakash Singh judgment, the Supreme Court laid down procedures for appointment of a DGP so that there is no political interference.
• As per the guidelines, the state government was to select the DGP from the list of three officers selected by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) that would have gone through the records of all the eligible officers from the state cadre.
• In Maharashtra’s case, a list of 20 officers with over 30 years tenure is present with UPSC. While initially the SC had said the person selected should have at least a two-year service period remaining, it was later reduced to six months.
• The Supreme Court also barred the state government from appointing DGP’s on acting basis.

Conditions of Police in India:

• Police stations in outlying rural areas lack even the basic technology, forensic aid and equipments for crime detection.
• Many of them are located in signal gap zones, where mobile phones barely work and internet connectivity is weak or non-existent.
• Overburdened, as a single police station has to look after 70 to 80 villages in large states
• The building infrastructures in many cases are still poor and unliveable — forget about interrogation or detention cells.
• With a severe manpower deficit, India’s police force is grossly overworked.
• The heavy pendency of work is coupled with brazen political interference.
• Work stress is inordinately high and the quality of their life is poor and de-motivating.
• The urgency to improve the crime detection rate is a matter of constant worry.

Reforms needed:

• All police stations need to be provided with modern-day amenities and connectivity.
• There is dire need of state-of-art technology and equipments to promote hassle-free interrogation and crime detection.
• The police force needs to be trained at regular intervals and CBI should impart special training to the state police personnel for questioning suspects.
• Separation of the law and order and investigation wings at police stations.
• Strengthening the prosecution apparatus and provision of legal advisors in the district police set up.
• Sustained focus on Ease of Doing Policing and measures for empowering police within a well-established accountability framework could prove to be biggest step towards reducing this practice.
• The recruitment process for the police has to be equipped with modern psychoanalytical tools to shun the entry of those with a grain of brutality.
• It must implement the Supreme Court’s directive on setting up a Police Complaints Authority in every state of India.

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