The Supreme Court has refused to stay an Allahabad high court order threatening to initiate contempt of court proceedings against top officials of the UP government for not implementing the court’s earlier order, reinstating police constables recruited during the previous political regime. That order had directed the government to distinguish between “genuine” recruits and those appointed through irregular means. The high court held the view that all 20,000 constables could hardly have been appointed illegally. The government stand was that since the recruitment process was vitiated, it was not necessary to segregate the candidates for appointments — and that that would have been a difficult exercise in practice.

It is a fact that large-scale corruption and irregularities in the recruitment of constables had come to light in UP, exposing gross political interference in the recruitment of subordinate police staff. Indeed irregularities and corruption in the recruitment of police constables have assumed scandalous dimensions not only in UP but in quite a few other north Indian states and become a blot on police administration. In UP, 22,000 policemen were recruited in the Samajwadi Party’s tenure between 2004 and 2006. Irregularities included the flouting of established recruitment procedures, the waiver of police verification in order to recruit people with criminal records, the forgery of examination papers and caste certificates and changing of laid-down criteria for selection.

Constables matter. They constitute nearly 80 per cent of the police force. They have maximum visibility today and no longer play the predominantly mechanical role assigned by the Police Commission 1902. Constables have to apply their minds, exercise their judgment, persuade, appeal and enforce the law. The constabulary are the cutting edge of police administration, and their behaviour impacts the public mind.

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