BENGALURU : Police, a highly hierarchical and uniformed force, is best run by its lowest functionaries. A constable, for instance, is better known in his village than perhaps the district Superintendent of Police (SP), who is an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer - a regular recruit or promoted from State service.
In a scenario where the ratio of police personnel per lakh persons is 195.39 as per sanctioned strength and 155.78 as per actual strength (Bureau of Police Research & Development (BPR&D) report on January 1,2020) the post of police sub inspector (PSI) is not only very important, it is also highly coveted and seen as a lifetime achievement by many.
One of the most enduring reasons for Indians’ obsession with the police is the uniform and the power that comes with it. Hence, it is no surprise that when it comes to their family member applying for a PSI’s post, a family is often ‘waylaid’ to sell their meagre assets including land to ‘pay’ for their kin’s way to khaki.
Touts and agents thrive on this weakness on which corruption in government recruitment survives. The PSI recruitment scam that has rocked the BJP government in Karnataka is a replay of many such recruitment scams in the past despite strong resistance and roadblocks created by some officers, who wanted to straighten the curve, and they did.
At one point, in the late 90s and mid-2000, the Karnataka model of police recruitment was among the best in India. It was upheld by many other states and was also awarded the ISO certification, “though getting a certificate was not our goal.
What we wanted and ensured was that the right candidates got into the police force on the basis of merit through a transparent recruitment process,” says former director general and inspector general of police Ajai Singh, who headed recruitment as the Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) between 1998 and 2001.
He attributes the success of holding fool-proof police recruitment to intra- and interdepartmental co-operation, which allowed them to make appropriate changes in the process to prevent manipulation. “We had got the marks for viva (oral interview) reduced from 50 marks (under then police recruitment rules) to seven and a half (under general recruitment rules) to prevent possible manipulation, and for this, the then home secretary MB Prakash helped us in amending the police recruitment rules.
Everybody on the interview board was free to question the marks given by a panelist to candidates for viva,” he says. Other measures included the codification of answer sheets for essay and translation paper to conceal the identity of the candidates from the examiners. The answers to the multiple choice questions, which was an OMR sheet in triplicate, were announced the same evening of the exam, shared with the press and put up on the notice board.
One of the sheets was given to the candidate. “After the last interview, the selection list was declared in two days’ time. In the meanwhile, we invited officers from the Social Welfare Department to verify if the reservation policy has been properly implemented in the recruitment,” recalled the former top cop, who was the chairman of the recruitment board, with the incumbent DG&IGP Praveen Sood, then deputy inspector general of police (DIGP), recruitment, as its secretary, and three IAS officers as members of the board.
“Some candidates did go to Karnataka Administrative Tribunal (KAT). Sood, and subsequently, the then DIG, Recruitment, PK Sandhu (presently, DGP, Criminal Investigation Department) handled the legal cases deftly,” he said. Regarding political pressure in recruitment, during Singh’s days there were innumerable calls from elected representatives and bureaucrats to favour their candidates, but none from the then Chief Minister SM Krishna or his office.
“I used to receive several calls from politicians and bureaucrats, but never noted down any roll numbers. On the examination day, I would address the candidates and tell them that we have received calls on their behalf but nothing other than their performance would work and that they should concentrate on their exams alone. We also issued press releases that the police recruitment was transparent and no influence would work,” recalls Singh.
Karnataka police recruitment was at one point, a “model of best practices. We were invited by some other states to help them with their PSI recruitment,” says former DGP Guruprasad, who was ADGP, recruitment between June 2006 and February 2009. Former Director General and Inspector General of Police, ST Ramesh, who was ADGP, Recruitment & Training, between 2009 and 2010, says although “the recruiting officer comes under tremendous pressure from current and former legislators, ministers, chief ministers, civil servants and even friends and relatives, resisting it at the risk of one’s career is the name of the game.”
In the wake of the scam, which has brought all the 545 PSI recruits under scanner, the government has annulled the recruitment process. It is injustice to hundreds of those candidates, who may have burnt the midnight oil and worked hard to crack it. The responsibility to restore the glory of PSI recruitment in Karnataka lies in the hands of those, who are in position of authority and can redeem it to its glory. “Any kind of pressure, including political, cannot be an alibi for malpractice compromising the system. The way forward is to follow the rules,” said Singh.