IAS vs IPS impasse in UP may end for now

The face-off between the Indian Administrative Service and Indian Police Service officers in Uttar Pradesh may have been averted. The state government was reportedly "examining" the concerns of police officers, who have revived their demand for commissionerates.

“Don’t call it IAS versus IPS," said Pravin Singh, president of the UP IPS Association. "Differences arose over functionality after the chief secretary’s letter, but necessary corrections were being made. The Assembly session and the upcoming IAS Week have slightly delayed a formal government response,” he added.

At an emergency meeting on Wednesday, the IPS Association sought clarification from the government on UP Chief Secretary Rajiv Kumar’s 7 September letter, “which was meant to humiliate IPS officers and erode the authority of SPs, the head of police administration”, said a retired police officer.

He said if the IAS lobby wanted to press ahead with its anti-IPS agenda then “the government should liquidate the IPS and allow district magistrates to don uniforms and take up policing as part of their duties”.

The IPS Association said the move would demoralise the force.

Although the police officers do not dispute the district magistrate’s role as head of crime administration, traditionally a DM does not chair a crime meeting. The letter, however, spoke of DMs chairing “law and order” meeting at Police Lines.

Secretary of the IPS Association, Aseem Arun, has now written a letter to his IAS Association counterpart suggesting that any meeting on law and order should be co-chaired by DM and SSP or SP. He said that the impression of tug-of-war between the two services was sending a wrong message and urged him to “end the imperialist attitude of the IAS”.

Arun also wrote that a lot of energy is wasted in following protocol like whose car has to make way for the other.

What made IPS officers see red was the government’s silence over Director-General of Police Sulkhan Singh’s reaction to the government order through a letter dated 9 November.

“The government never expected a DM to go into the nitty-gritty of crime. There is no role for DM in small details,” said the former IPS officer.

A retired IAS officer said that the Police Manual and the CrPC have defined the roles of DMs and SSPs/SPs so there should be no room for any doubt about who wields greater authority.

“When DMs have been chairing crime meetings and Acts like the Goonda Act or Arms Act cannot be slapped on an individual without a DM’s signature then it is clear that he is superior to his police counterparts in the district,” the officer said.

He went to the extent of saying that the police in Uttar Pradesh have failed miserably in controlling crime. Low conviction rate also is an indicator of how the police have failed to carry out their responsibility.

Opposing the idea of police commissioner the officer said that in no state has it been such a success that it should be copied in UP too.

The retired IPS officer countered by saying that in UP the bureaucrats did not allow the police to work freely.

“Although the DM is head of crime administration, it is always the IPS officer who faces the axe whenever there is a law and order situation. I do not recall an IAS officer ever being suspended for his failure to handle law and order problem,” he said.

Recalling former DGP Prakash Singh’s inquiry report in the Haryana riots, he said that while the action was recommended both against the IAS and IPS officers concerned but the action was taken only against the latter.

He said that let the police commissioner system be tried out in Lucknow and Kanpur and if it fails to deliver the government can always scrap it.

“After all, there must be some merit in the commissioner system that the governments in about 12 states are persisting with it,” the former IPS officer said.