Politics & optics of govt recruitment in Uttar Pradesh

ON June 15, newspapers carried full-page advertisements proclaiming the ‘distribution of letters’ among 60,244 civil police constables by Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Uttar Pradesh. The advertisement also stated that the constables, including 12,048 women, were “selected through a fair and transparent recruitment process by the Uttar Pradesh Police Recruitment and Promotion Board”. Despite a regular selection procedure, the distribution of job letters by the Home Minister apparently conveyed the impression that the appointments were largesse bestowed by the ruling party.

No wonder former UP CM and Samajwadi Party MP Akhilesh Yadav commented on X, “To overcome the shortage of policemen, long-term steps like regular recruitment drives should be undertaken because by the time the recruitment process is completed in 3-4 years under the BJP rule, 50,000-60,000 policemen would have retired and the shortage will remain the same.”

Public appointments in India at all levels are constitutionally ordained. Articles 308 to 312 under Chapter I Part XIV of the Constitution elaborate the processes for recruitment for all posts of the Union and the States. Chapter II prescribes public service commissions at the central and state levels.

Article 309 provides that “… Acts of the appropriate Legislature may regulate the recruitment, and conditions of service of persons appointed, to public services and posts in connection with the affairs of the Union or of any State.”

Further, it enables the President — and in the case of a state, the Governor, or any ‘such person’ authorised by him — “to make rules regulating the recruitment, and the conditions of service of persons appointed to such services and posts” until a provision under an Act of the appropriate legislature is made. Article 309 thus gives an option for making immediate recruitment.

While distributing the letters, Shah praised the chief minister for the “largest ever” such appointments that would help in maintaining law and order in the state. Praising Adityanath’s reign, he said, “Goons no longer dictate terms in the state. The rule of law has been established. Each of you was selected purely on merit from among 48 lakh applicants. There were no bribes, recommendations or caste-based bias, unlike when other governments were in office.”

While the initiative of filling vacancies in the constabulary needs to be lauded, this exercise and its amplification raise a number of questions. Adityanath has been in power in UP since 2017. This “sudden realisation” of over 60,000 vacancies means that the government has not followed a regular, time-bound recruitment process. The reason for such a large-scale appointment in one go is also not clear.

These recruits will have to go through proper training, for the police job is highly specialised. The increasing use of technology by criminals has made policing far more complex and challenging. Gone are the days when the constabulary was a lathi-wielding, uniformed herd of personnel needed for mechanical duties, including serving seniors as orderlies (this demeaning task has not been scrapped by states).

Uttar Pradesh has constable training centres in Meerut, Gorakhpur, Lucknow, Agra and Kanpur. Can these centres accommodate and train such a large number of recruits simultaneously? The training period for constables in the state is six months, while in other states, it varies from nine months to a year. The training schedule and syllabi drawn up for the constabulary by the Bureau of Police Research and Development is very extensive and comprehensive. Is this being followed and can this be achieved logistically, given the learning capacity of the recruits, in six months?

The need to upgrade the constabulary was recognised in the early 1960s. In 1961, the Bihar Police Commission observed: “A constable should be expected to exercise his discretion and assume responsibility. In all progressive police forces, every constable is a live unit of the force…” The National Police Commission, in its first report (1979), stressed “the changed needs of policing the country” and “the importance of making the constables function as a responsible functionary with due sense of values, discretion and judgment…” Obviously, the recruits in the police organisation, even at the lowest level, must be trained keeping the needs of the 21st century in mind.

Both the Centre (since 2014) and the Adityanath government have shown an inclination to use the latter part of Article 309 to escape the regular processes of making appointments and/or promotions to higher levels in various departments. For example, while the Centre has used lateral entry and extensions, the UP government has tried to evade the Supreme Court guidelines that the UPSC must be involved in the selection process for the appointment of the Director General of Police (DGP).

The state government has skirted the guidelines by appointing acting DGPs (three so far) in succession since May 2022. At the central level, some secretaries, Director (Intelligence Bureau) and the Research & Analysis Wing chief have got extensions over the years. In 2023, the Supreme Court declared two extensions granted to the Director of the Enforcement Directorate, beyond the fixed cut-off date, as “not valid in law”.

Ajay K Mehra is a Visiting Senior Fellow, Centre for Multilevel Federalism.

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