Supreme Court seeks status of vacancies of police force

New Delhi: With over five lakh vacancies in the police force at different level in states, the Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Home Secretaries of all the states to furnish details of the vacancies at all levels.

Observing that the vacancies in police force was an important issue, the bench of Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar, Justice N.V. Ramana and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud directed that in case of failure to furnish the details of vacancies in the police force, the Home Secretaries would be present in person with all relevant records.

The court gave four weeks time to the states to file their affidavits giving the details of the vacancies.

The court order came on a PIL by one Manish Kumar who had referred to the report of Bureau of Police Research and Development to buttress his point on the large scale vacancies.

The PIL petitioner had said that the deteriorating law and order situation in the country was directly linked the the large number of vacancies. He said that there were about 5.42 lakh vacancies.

The court in its order said, "In view of the importance of the issue, we require the Home Secretaries of all the state governments to file affidavits in this court depicting the necessary position."

For ensuring compliance of its order, the court directed the Centre to communicate its order to the Home Secretaries of all the state governments within one week.