States directed to report police vacancies

Terming the issue as “important”, a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar made it clear that if any state does not file such affidavit giving details, the apex court would summon the Home Secretaries concerned. “In view of the importance of the issue, we require Home Secretaries of all the state governments to file affidavits in this court depicting the vacancy position,” the bench said. 

“In order to ensure compliance of the order, we hereby direct respondent number one (Centre) to communicate the instant order to all the Home Secretaries of state governments within one week,” it said, while noting that figures of January 2015 given to it indicated that there were around 4.73 lakh vacancies.

“Such state governments, who would fail to file affidavit sought in the order, we will ensure the presence of the Home Secretary himself along with all necessary records to assist this court in disposal of the instant matter,” the bench, also comprising Justices N V Ramana and D Y Chandrachud, said. 

The apex court observed that currently the workload on the police was heavy but there was less staff to deal with it. When one of the ad vocates sought more time for the Home Secretaries to furnish details in the court, the bench said, “They have enough time to file the affidavit”. 

The bench noted in its order that despite issuance of notices earlier, most of the state governments have not filed the response giving details of the vacancies. The court was hearing a petition filed by advocate Manish Kumar who had highlighted the number of vacancies in police services across the country and said that due to this, the law and order situation has deteriorated. 

Referring to a 2015 report, he had claimed that there was a total of around 5.42 lakh vacancies in the police services. In his plea, he had sought a direction to the states and union territories to “fill up the vacant posts in the police and state armed forces so that the police forces do not remain overburdened”. 

The plea had sought directions for formulation and implementation of “guidelines for prevention and control of violent mass agitations and destruction of life and property” in terms of the guidelines suggested by the apex court in its earlier judgement.