In its response to a PIL before the Bombay High Court, the state Home department recently revealed that vacancies in Maharashtra Police have increased nearly threefold, as the number of vacant posts, ranging from ranks of constable to director general of police, has risen from 5 per cent in 2019 to 13.4 per cent in July this year. As on July 5, out of the total 2,19,776 sanctioned posts, as many as 29,401 were vacant.
The state said the primary reason for the increase in vacancies was the impact of the pandemic, which led to recruitment drives being put on hold and several personnel, who were front-line workers, succumbing to Covid-19. The government assured the court that recruitment drives will be initiated shortly.
Among current vacancies as on July 5, three out of total eight DGP rank posts were vacant, whereas 19,061 of 95,713 sanctioned posts of constables were vacant. According to the state response, while 198 police personnel were required per one lakh population, Maharashtra had 174 police personnel per one lakh people instead.
The court directed the state government to file an additional affidavit, indicating steps taken for filling up vacant posts and report the developments by next hearing. The government was responding to a PIL filed by social activist Sanjay Bhaskarrao Kale, seeking directions to the state to fill up the sanctioned posts of police personnel as expeditiously as possible and to increase the strength of personnel in each police station, based on manpower assessment undertaken by the Bureau of Police Research and Development.
The PIL, argued through advocate Krishna Agrawal, instructed by the firm Talekar & Associates, also sought direction to the respondent authorities to fix the working hours of police personnel in accordance with recommendations of the Bureau.
It further sought constitution of a Police Commission to deal with allegations of police inaction, redressal of grievances of police and to make recommendations for the welfare of the police force.
On Monday, a division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Makarand S Karnik noted that while the present PIL was filed in May, 2019, prior to that, a suo motu PIL was initiated by the High Court on a similar issue, which was disposed of on September, 16, 2019.
Another bench had then recorded that only 5% of the total workforce were left to be filled up by that date. While the bench had observed that no department could ever be filled up for reasons such as retirement, resignation or death, it had directed the police to fill up nearly 8,757 constabulary posts in an expeditious manner Government Pleader Priyabhushan P Kakade, appearing for the state government, submitted an affidavit filed by Anil Kulkarni, joint secretary of the Home department, in reply to the present PIL, which revealed the vacancy has now risen to over 13% of the total workforce.
Kakade submitted that one of the reasons for the vacancies was that during the recent pandemic, the recruitment drives could not be undertaken. However, he assured that the proposals are pending before the competent authority and it is expected that recruitment drives for filling up the thousands of vacant posts of police personnel in Maharashtra will be initiated shortly.
The state’s affidavit stated that although the police department has to work 24 x7, the personnel work in shifts and at present, considering work pressure and availability of manpower, “8-hour shift is not practically feasible, unless the strength to that effect is increased.” It also submitted that there are 75,146 residential quarters for police personnel across the state and 7,965 more are under construction. The state said that there are 1,017 police stations in Maharashtra and CCTVs have been installed at 764 police stations so far. Work of installation in remaining police stations will be completed as early as possible, stated the affidavit.
The bench took the state’s affidavit on record and noted, “We need to give some time to the state on this behalf and to report developments”. Seeking an additional affidavit from the state, the court posted the matter for further hearing to November 9.