Police Administration

THE present police system in India is a legacy from the British. In the words of J.C. Curry, "The present police system is a creation of the British Government and rests on the basic ideals of efficiency and subordination to the law of land." There was an outcry against the police for having been instrumental in suppressing the people during the British days, and the outcry has continued after the transfer of power and is still equally strident. Almost all the major State Governments had appointed police commissions to go into the working of the police in order to suggest reform and restructuring of the police force. Police reform finds mention in the 1977 manifesto of the Janata Party, in pursuance of which the National Police Commission has recently been appointed*· The fact, however, remains that with minor changes, more or less peripheral in nature, the police system as designed by the British has continued. The very survival of the system despite the continued onslaught perhaps speaks for its strength, necessity and indispensability.