Police strength not enough for state's population: High Court

The High Court on Wednesday observed that Karnataka’s police strength in proportion to its population was far less than that of other states.

Justice AN Venugopala Gowda said that compared to the situation in states like Goa and Kerala, about 25% posts in the police department in Karnataka are vacant.

He said that of the total sanctioned strength of 96,748, the department has only 72,778 police personnel with nearly 23,970 posts vacant. There are 68,423 male police personnel and 4,355 female staff, showing a huge difference in their numbers.
The bench wondered how, if lakhs of women came out on the streets like they did during the garments workers' protests, can the present strength of the women police handle them. The bench asked why there are only four police training academies and why new recruits had to be trained for nine months.

Looking at the number of recruitments over the years, he said that in 2009, there was hardly any recruitment. In 2010, 4,342 were recruited, in 2011 it was 3,091, in 2012 – 3,731; in 2013 – 3,829 and in 2014, 3,815 police personnel were recruited.
The bench said recruitment has not been done in proportion to the increase in population and crime rate.

The bench directed the government counsel to apprise the Advocate General about the directions issued by the court and to hold a meeting with the DG and IGP and all ADGPs about how they would fill up vacancies in a structured recruitment format in the coming years and submit the same to the court in the next hearing on Friday.