Hiring and Hierarchy of the Police Department

Hiring and Hierarchy of the Police Department

Talking about hiring, we will discuss hiring for both Private Detective Agencies and the Police Department.

Hiring by a Private Detective Agency: As mentioned in the earlier part, the Private Detective Agencies in India are regulated by either the State or Central Private Detective Agency Regulatory Board, as mandated by the “The Private Detective Agencies (Regulation) Bill, 2007”. There are no hard and fast rules regarding the person’s educational qualification. It is left to each agency to decide that. The Regulatory Authority states only the following points to be strictly adhered to while hiring a Private Detective Agent. (i) He should be an Indian citizen (ii) He should be more than 21 years of age (iii) He should not have been convicted of any criminal offense. The rest of the eligibility criteria can be decided by the individual agencies.

Hiring by the Police Department: A Police Department hires directly at three levels. The first is the Constabulary level, the second is at the level of the Sub-Inspector of Police and the third is at the level of Superintendent of Police or the Deputy Commissioner of Police.

The Constabulary level hiring is done by the respective Police Departments in the case of the State Police. The candidate should have a minimum educational qualification of 10 + 2 and should pass a written test and test of physical fitness and endurance.

For the level of Sub-Inspector of Police, the candidate should have a minimum Graduation level of education and the selection is done by the State Public Service Commission in case of the State Police and by the Staff Selection Commission for the CBI. The examinations have a 3 tier system where the candidate should pass a written test first to qualify for the next tier of the examination.

The Superintendent of Police / Deputy Commissioner of Police is generally from the IPS cadre. The IPS comes under the Civil Services examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission of the Government of India. The state police can have Superintendent Of Police or the DCP only from their own state cadre, while the CBI, being a Central Police Organization, can have IPS officers from any State Cadre taken on deputation to the Central Cadre, generally for a period of 5 years. However, there may be exceptions to this rule, eg. Julio Ribeiro, an IPS officer of the Maharashtra Cadre was sent to Punjab as Director General of Punjab Police in 1986 during the height of the Punjab insurgency. He had proved his credentials as the Mumbai Police Commissioner who coined the slogan “Bullet for Bullet” and was instrumental in breaking the backbone of the Mumbai underworld of the early eighties. He did not disappoint even as Punjab DGP. A Lion in any jungle would be a Lion after all.

Hierarchy of the State Police :

A person joining as a Constable gets promotions as follows - PC (Police Constable) to Police Naik to HC (Head Constable) to ASI (Assistant Sub-Inspector) to PSI (Police Sub-Inspector). Though most of them retire as ASI, there are very few who get promoted as PSI as there is only a small quota for promotion as PSI. The rest of the PSI positions are filled by direct recruits.

A person joining as a PSI (Sub-Inspector of Police) gets promotions as follows. PSI to API (Assistant Police Inspector) to PI (Police Inspector) to Sr.PI (Senior Police Inspector) to ACP (Assistant Commissioner of Police) or Dy.SP (Deputy Superintendent of Police) depending on the department, and to DCP (Deputy Commissioner of Police) or the SP (Superintendent of Police). Though most of them retire as ACP or Dy.SP, there are few who get promoted as DCP or SP, as there is only a small quota for promotion as DCP / SP. The rest of the DCP / SP positions are filled by IPS officers, directly from the Civil Services.

A person joining as DCP / SP gets promotions as Addl.CP (Additional Commissioner of Police) or DIG (Deputy Inspector General) to Jt.CP (Joint Commissioner of Police) or IG (Inspector General of Police). Thereafter all positions like Additional DGP, DGP, etc. are IG positions depending on seniority. A person joining the State Police as DCP / SP has the opportunity of retiring as the DGP (Director General of Police) of the State.

We will talk about "Criminal Investigation" in my next Blog.