15.56 conduct Rules prohibit all Government servants including the police personnel from being members of or otherwise being associated with any political party, or any organisation which takes part in politics. They are also required to endeavour to prevent any member of their family from taking similar part in politics. Canvassing or otherwise interfering with or using their influence in connection with any election is also 'prohibited—vide Rule 5 of the All India Services (Conduct) Rules and Rule 5 of the Central Civil Services (Conduct) Rules. However, in practice this important Conduct Rule does not appear to have been enforced with the required strictness and severity. It is well known that in the symbiotic relationship that has developed between the politicians and the executive, several police personnel have developed close contacts with politicians and are known to seek political influence and interference to secure undue advantages at different stages in their career. We find that the number of instances in which police personnel get punished for infringement of this Conduct Rule are very rare. We would recommend that: the administration should take a severe view of any infringement of the above mentioned conduct rule and deal with erring officers in a deterrent manner. In appropriate cases resort may also be had to article 311(2)(b) or (c) to weed out such personnel from the system. In cases where this constitutional provision is invoked, all the available material against the police personnel concerned should be scrutinised by a small Committee under the Chairmanship of the Chief of Police. Members of this Committee may be drawn from senior ranks in the prosecuting agency set up of the State and police officers of the rank of Deputy Inspector General of Police (other than the one who may have been concerned either directly or in a supervisory capacity with the situations or instances that figure in the material for consideration by the Committee).
Political infiltration into police15.57 We would also like to point out another danger in this context—the danger of political infiltration into the police system. It is conceivable that some political parties adopt a deliberate strategy of injecting into the police system, through channels of recruitment at different levels, young men who are strongly committed to the ideologies of the political party and could be expected to influence, from within, , the functioning of the police system to conform to these ideologies. While we do not hold any brief for or against any political party to say that the membership thereof or association therewith should not or should act as a bar for recruitment to the police at any , level, we would state emphatically that the continued involvement in political activity of any kind either directly or indirectly by any personnel after joining the police at any level should not be tolerated in) any circumstances. The weeding out of such persons should receive special attention of the Chief of Police from time to time. Here again, recourse may be had to the provisions of article 311(2)(b) or (c) of the Constitution, if need be in appropriate cases.
Transfer/Suspension of police personnel15.58 We have already referred to the threat continuously faced by police officers in the shape of frequent transfers, suspensions, etc. ordered by the government on political considerations. An analysis of suspensions ordered in a few States in 1977 has shown that in the rank of Inspectors 27% of suspensions were actually ordered by authorities higher than the authority normally competent to order their suspension. In the case of Sub-Inspectors this percentage is 16. This indicates the trend of interference from a higher level to bring about the suspension of officers when the normally competent authority to order a suspension may not consider it necessary to do so. We feel that police officers should be effectively protected from such whimsical and mala fide transfer/suspension orders. One step for securing this protection could be to incorporate a provision in the Police/Act itself specifying the authorities competent to issue transfer/suspension orders regarding different ranks. Such a statutory provision would render hull and void any transfer/suspension order passed by any authority other than those specified in the Act This would be an improvement over the present "position where the powers of transfer/suspension are merely spelt out in rules or executive instructions which can always be overruled by the government as and when it feels like doing so for reasons of its own.
15.59 Another step could be to lay down as a rule that every transfer/suspension order should also contain a brief paragraph indicating the reasons for the issue of the order, and making it a further rule that any transfer/suspension order' which does not contain this explanatory paragraph shall not be a valid order. The advantage in this arrangement would be that the recipient of the transfer/suspension order will have some material with him which he can agitate before the authorised available forums if he feels that the reasons are mala fide or otherwise not sustainable.
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