BINOD KUMAR Vs. STATE OF ASSAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In the present petition, the petitioners have challenged the validity of Rule 63(iii) of Part-I and Chapter IV of the Assam Police Manual. It reads as under:-

(2.) The petitioners belong to the Indian Police Service and their services have been allotted to the Assam Wing of Assam/Meghalaya Joint Cadre. They are seriously aggrieved with the above quoted Rule which makes the Deputy Commissioner as 'reporting officer' of the District Superintendent of Police even though, according to them, the Deputy Commissioner does not fall in the departmental hierarchy of the Police service. They submit that the Annual Confidential Reports (ACRs)/Annual Performance Appraisal Reports (APARs) of Superintendent of Police CID, Special Branch, Anti Corruption Bureau, Vigilance and Bureau of Economic Offences and Border are initiated by their respective Deputy Inspectors General of Police, but despite enactment of the Assam Police Act, 2007 (in short "Act, 2007"), this system has illegally not been introduced in the case of District Superintendent of Police.

(3.) The petitioners also submit that when the Police Act, 1861 was brought into force, the judiciary was not separated from the executive, as a result of which, the District Magistrate was the head of criminal administration of a District. And, during that time, the District Magistrate enforced his authority and fulfilled his responsibility to maintain law and order with the help of police force. Therefore, under such circumstances, the Deputy Commissioner or the District Magistrate was vested with the power to initiate the performance report of the Superintendent of Police of the District. However, after the separation of judiciary from the executive in the State, the District Magistrate is no longer the head of criminal administration of a District in the State. Likewise, the duties of both the Deputy Commissioner and Superintendent of Police in a District have undergone radical changes with the addition of many responsibilities, but the Rule to initiate performance appraisal of District Superintendent of Police by the Deputy Commissioner has not been changed. The petitioners further submit that the practice of initiating performance appraisal of the District Superintendent of Police by the Deputy Commissioner originally prevailed in the British Province of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, but later, some progressive governments like West Bengal, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra have removed this old system by introducing a new system where departmental hierarchy is prevalent and now ACRs/APARs of the District Superintendent of Police is initiated by a superior officer of the Department.