Lalit Shastri

The Police Act of 1861: A colonial legacy that still shapes policing

Enacted by the British after the 1857 uprising, the Police Act, 1861 continues to remain in force in several parts of India, even though a number of states have since enacted their own police legislation.

Why it matters: State-specific laws such as the Maharashtra Police Act and the Delhi Police Act have modified the legal framework in their respective jurisdictions, but many of the institutional and administrative structures associated with the 1861 model continue to influence policing.

Madhya Pradesh is also an example. The state has made multiple amendments over the years to the colonial-era Police Act, 1861, as well as to its internal Madhya Pradesh Police Regulations. At the same time, it has introduced major structural changes in policing, including the Police Commissionerate system in Bhopal and Indore, alongside the transition to India’s new criminal laws.

Yet these reforms also highlight a larger question: how far can a modern policing system be transformed through amendments and administrative restructuring while its foundational legal framework retains roots in a colonial statute?

The persistence of this framework has long been questioned by legal experts and the Supreme Court, particularly in the context of police accountability, autonomy, professionalisation and constitutional rights.

The larger question is no longer whether India needs police reform—but whether a modern constitutional democracy should continue to operate substantial parts of its policing system on a framework conceived in colonial India.

There are moments when a seemingly simple question opens a window into the history of a nation.

Some years ago, I put one such question to a senior police officer – to be precise a highly decorated Director General of Police. I asked: Why does a petty thief often find himself behind bars, while a sophisticated white-collar offender, accused of causing losses running into crores, can remain outside prison and keep the criminal justice system occupied for years?

His answer took me back to colonial India.

The then DGP recalled an episode from the British Raj. The wife of a district Collector, he said, enjoyed a degree of protection that reflected the hierarchy of the colonial administration. A chain-snatching or purse-snatching involving such a person could invite exceptionally severe consequences.

The anecdote is worth treating as an illustration rather than as a substitute for archival evidence of the precise punishment prescribed in any particular case. But the larger historical point is compelling: colonial policing operated within a system of power in which authority, hierarchy and the protection of the ruling establishment were central considerations.

That history matters because India today is asking a fundamental question: have we completely transformed the institution that exercises the coercive power of the State from a colonial instrument into a genuinely constitutional, citizen-centric police service?

The Clive connection
To understand the mentality of colonial administration, one need not begin with the Police Act. We can begin with Robert Clive.

Clive’s career symbolises the extraordinary transformation of the East India Company from a commercial enterprise into a territorial and political power. The Battle of Plassey in 1757 was followed by the Company’s expanding authority in Bengal and the accumulation of enormous fortunes by Company servants.

The controversy became so serious that the British Parliament investigated the East India Company’s affairs. Clive himself was questioned in Parliament in 1773 amid growing concern over the Company’s administration and the extraordinary wealth acquired by its servants.

The irony is difficult to miss. A colonial system could produce extraordinary opportunities for enrichment at the upper end of the power structure while simultaneously developing increasingly formidable mechanisms of authority and control at the lower end.

The point is not to suggest that Clive and the later Police Act belong to one continuous legal scheme. They do not. The point is to understand the political culture of colonial governance within which the machinery of administration evolved.

And policing was an important component of that machinery.

1857 and the Police Act of 1861
The Police Act of 1861 was enacted after the 1857 War of Independence, described in colonial British accounts as the Revolt of 1857.

Its preamble is revealing. It stated that it was expedient to reorganise the police and make it “a more efficient instrument” for the prevention and detection of crime. The Act was enacted on 22 March 1861.

There is nothing objectionable about preventing or detecting crime. Every modern State must do precisely that. The question is the institutional philosophy within which the task is performed.
The Act placed superintendence of the police in the State Government and established a hierarchical structure headed by the Inspector-General of Police and subordinate ranks. It was fundamentally an administrative instrument for organising and controlling the police force.

That architecture was created for a colonial administration. The citizen was not the sovereign in whose service the police operated. The colonial State was the authority to be maintained.

India’s constitutional transformation after 1947 should therefore have produced a corresponding transformation in policing.

But history does not change merely because a Constitution is adopted. Institutions have memories. Procedures have habits. Hierarchies develop cultures. And laws can survive long after the political philosophy that produced them has disappeared.

The Republic changes the Constitution—but not enough of the machinery
On 26 January 1950, India ceased to be a colonial possession and became a sovereign democratic republic.

The Constitution transformed the relationship between the individual and the State.
Article 14 guaranteed equality before law. Article 21 placed life and personal liberty under constitutional protection. Article 22 created safeguards against arbitrary arrest and detention. Article 39A recognised the constitutional commitment to equal justice and free legal aid.
The citizen was no longer merely a subject to be governed.

The citizen became the constitutional sovereign. Yet policing remained largely organised through inherited structures, state laws and institutional practices that had evolved from the colonial framework.

That is the paradox we have never completely resolved.

The Police Act of 1861 continues to exist in India’s legal landscape, although its application varies because several States and Union Territories have enacted their own police legislation. India Code itself records the 1861 Act as a central Act dating from 22 March 1861.

The issue, therefore, is not simply whether a particular nineteenth-century statute remains technically on the books.

The deeper issue is whether the institutional philosophy and administrative culture of Indian policing have kept pace with the Constitution.

Prakash Singh: the warning India did not fully heed
The Supreme Court’s landmark judgment in Prakash Singh v. Union of India in 2006 was not an isolated judicial intervention. It followed decades of commissions and committees examining the condition of Indian policing.

The Court’s intervention recognised that policing required insulation from unwarranted political interference, professionalisation and mechanisms of accountability. Its directions included State Security Commissions, transparent selection and minimum tenure for senior police officers, separation of investigation from law-and-order functions, Police Establishment Boards and Police Complaints Authorities.

The judgment remains one of the most important landmarks in the history of Indian police reform.
And yet the reform journey remains unfinished.

Indeed, the Supreme Court continues to deal with issues arising from implementation of Prakash Singh, including matters concerning appointment of police chiefs. A 2026 Supreme Court order expressly relied upon Prakash Singh while issuing directions concerning DGP appointments across States.

That continuing judicial involvement tells its own story. A reform framework that requires repeated judicial intervention decades later is a reform framework that has not yet been fully institutionalised.

When inspection becomes ritual
There is another, less visible weakness in Indian policing that deserves far greater attention: the machinery of internal supervision itself.

A police organisation does not become accountable merely because it has senior officers, tours, inspections, annual confidential reports, registers and prescribed procedures.

These mechanisms are meaningful only when they are used to discover failure, correct deficiencies and hold errant officers accountable.

Over the years, however, the system of tours, inspections and confidential reporting has, in too many instances, acquired the character of administrative ritual.

The inspection is conducted because the inspection is due. The report is written because the report is required. The confidential report is completed because the annual cycle demands it.

What should be a searching examination of performance can become little more than a compliance exercise. That is dangerous.

A properly functioning supervisory system should be able to detect, well before a case collapses in court, whether a police station is functioning properly; whether complaints are being received and registered promptly; whether FIRs are being investigated with due diligence; whether case diaries accurately reflect the progress of investigation; whether arrests and searches are lawful; whether seized material is properly preserved; whether witnesses are being examined; whether forensic evidence has been sought where necessary; and whether investigations are moving towards a legally sustainable conclusion.

The supervisory responsibility should begin before the FIR stage and continue through the entire investigative process.

The neglected pre-FIR stage
The quality of investigation can be compromised even before an FIR is registered.

A citizen approaching a police station with information about a cognisable offence should not encounter an informal screening mechanism designed to discourage registration or minimise the seriousness of the complaint.

Nor should the response depend upon the social standing, influence or financial capacity of the complainant.

The first test of a citizen-centric police system is therefore deceptively simple: Does the police station listen? The second is: Does it act according to law? And the third is: Does someone senior actually examine whether it has done so?

Supervision cannot begin only after an FIR appears in a register. An FIR is the beginning—not the end
Registration of an FIR should never be regarded as the completion of the police station’s responsibility. It is the beginning of the State’s investigative obligation.

Yet what happens thereafter often disappears into the administrative maze of the police station. How many FIRs are pending investigation? How old are they? Why are they pending? What evidence has been collected? What evidence remains outstanding? Has forensic examination been sought? Have relevant witnesses been examined? Have digital and financial trails been followed? Has the investigating officer considered alternative hypotheses? Has the case diary been maintained contemporaneously? Has a supervisory officer scrutinised the investigation? Has unexplained delay occurred?

These should not be questions asked only after a case reaches court. They should be part of routine professional supervision. Technology makes such monitoring entirely possible. But technology alone will not solve the problem.

What is required is a change in institutional culture—from inspection as paperwork to inspection as accountability.

The case diary: the memory of an investigation

The case diary deserves particular attention. It is not merely another police register. It is, in effect, the institutional memory of an investigation.

If entries are delayed, incomplete or superficial, the ability of the supervisory system to determine what an investigating officer actually did—and when—becomes severely compromised.

A properly maintained case diary should allow a senior officer to reconstruct the investigative journey: the complaint, the evidence gathered, the witnesses examined, searches conducted, forensic material obtained, leads pursued, contradictions encountered and reasons for investigative decisions.

The supervisory officer should be able to detect whether the investigation is moving towards the truth or merely towards a convenient conclusion.

That distinction is the difference between professional policing and procedural policing. Confidential reports must mean something.
The confidential report—or whatever modern equivalent an administrative system adopts—also deserves serious reconsideration.

An officer’s career assessment should not become predominantly a measure of obedience, administrative convenience or the ability to maintain a superficially clean record. A genuinely professional appraisal should examine measurable indicators of integrity, quality of investigation, respect for constitutional safeguards, documentation, supervisory performance, responsiveness to citizens and adherence to law.

This does not mean punishing an officer simply because an investigation ends in acquittal.
Criminal investigation is inherently uncertain. An honest investigation can end in acquittal.

The crucial distinction is between failure despite honest professional investigation and failure because investigation was careless, compromised, deliberately delayed or never properly undertaken.

The former is an occupational reality. The latter is an accountability failure. That distinction must become central to police reform.

From confession to evidence
Perhaps the most important cultural transformation required is the movement from confession-centric policing to evidence-centric investigation.

The police station of the twenty-first century cannot depend primarily upon custodial interrogation, informers and traditional methods of investigation when technology can provide digital trails, CCTV footage, DNA, fingerprints, electronic communications, financial records, cyber-forensic evidence and sophisticated analytical tools.

Scientific investigation is not merely a technological upgrade. It is also a constitutional safeguard.

The more effectively the State can establish guilt through reliable evidence, the less incentive there is for coercive methods of investigation. This is particularly important in white-collar crime.

A petty theft may involve one accused and one physical object. A sophisticated economic offence may involve dozens of companies, layers of transactions, shell entities, digital communications, offshore structures, accounting records and multiple jurisdictions.

The investigative requirements are entirely different. Yet the institutional system often expects the same police organisation to deal with both. That is no longer adequate.

The poor accused and the powerful accused
There is another uncomfortable inequality. The criminal law may be formally identical for everyone. Access to the criminal justice system is not. A poor accused may have little understanding of the law, limited access to legal assistance, difficulty securing bail and no ability to employ investigators, forensic accountants, cyber experts or teams of lawyers.

A financially powerful accused may be able to deploy an entire legal and investigative apparatus. This does not mean that the rights of an accused person should be curtailed because he or she is wealthy. Quite the opposite.

Constitutional justice demands equal protection for both. But equality before law also requires the State to possess the institutional capacity to investigate sophisticated crime professionally and prosecute it effectively. Otherwise the criminal justice system risks producing the worst of both worlds: excessive coercion at the bottom and excessive procedural delay at the top.

The petty offender is caught. The sophisticated offender is litigated. Neither outcome represents a fully functional justice system.

The new criminal laws create a historic opportunity
India has meanwhile undertaken a major transformation of its criminal statutes. The Indian Penal Code has given way to the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.

The Code of Criminal Procedure has been replaced by the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023.

The Indian Evidence Act has been replaced by the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023.
The new criminal-law framework came into force on 1 July 2024.

Whatever one’s political or legal assessment of these enactments, one fact is undeniable: India has undertaken the largest statutory restructuring of criminal law in generations.

But there is a danger in believing that changing the statute book automatically changes the criminal justice system. It does not.

A modern criminal code administered through an antiquated institutional culture does not automatically produce modern justice.

The police officer who investigates the offence, the forensic scientist who examines the evidence, the prosecutor who presents the case, the legal-aid lawyer who represents the accused and the judge who ultimately decides the case are all parts of the same justice chain.

If one link remains weak, the entire chain suffers.

Police reform is not about giving the police more power
This distinction is essential. Police reform does not mean creating a more powerful police force. It means creating a more professional, independent, scientific, accountable and citizen-oriented police institution.

The police require operational autonomy to perform lawful functions. But autonomy without accountability can be dangerous.

The State cannot expect an officer to resist political pressure while simultaneously controlling every transfer and posting. It cannot demand professional investigation while leaving investigation vulnerable to interference. It cannot condemn custodial violence while failing to invest in scientific investigation. And it cannot demand better policing while ignoring working conditions, training, manpower, equipment, housing and technological requirements. The answer is not less accountability. It is institutional accountability combined with professional autonomy.

Police is a State subject—but reform is a national constitutional concern
There is a legitimate constitutional complication. Police is a subject in the State List. That does not, however, mean that national constitutional standards are impossible.

Crime increasingly crosses State boundaries. Cybercrime crosses borders in seconds.
Financial fraud can involve multiple jurisdictions. Human trafficking networks operate across States and countries.

Organised crime does not respect administrative boundaries. Evidence is digital, mobile and often international.

India therefore needs a framework that respects federalism while establishing minimum constitutional standards for policing, investigation, accountability, forensic capability and citizen protection.

The solution need not be a centrally controlled police force. It should be a modern constitutional framework within which State police organisations operate.

The unfinished decolonisation
The debate about colonial hangovers is sometimes reduced to changing names. But genuine decolonisation is not cosmetic. It is about changing the relationship between the State and the citizen. The colonial police station was fundamentally an institution of authority. The constitutional police station must be an institution of public service.

The colonial model asked: How do we maintain order? The constitutional model must ask:

How do we protect rights while maintaining order?

The colonial mindset saw the citizen primarily as someone to be controlled.

The constitutional Republic must see the citizen as someone whose liberty the State is duty-bound to protect.

That is the transformation India now needs.

What should a modern police law contain?

A new police law cannot merely change nomenclature or reproduce the existing hierarchy in contemporary language.

It should comprehensively address: professional autonomy; democratic accountability; separation and professionalisation of investigation; fixed and transparent tenure; police complaints mechanisms; scientific investigation; forensic infrastructure; digital evidence; citizen charters; FIR registration and monitoring; case-diary scrutiny; supervisory inspections; performance assessment; protection against political interference; custodial safeguards; training; recruitment; technology; welfare; prosecution coordination; and measurable accountability.

Most importantly, it should create a system in which responsibility is traceable.
When an investigation fails because evidence was ignored, who examined it?
When an FIR remains pending for years, who knew?
When a police station repeatedly generates complaints, who inspected it?
When a case diary is incomplete, who certified the investigation?
When a forensic report remains pending, who followed it up?
When an officer repeatedly fails in investigation, what does the confidential assessment record?

A modern system must make these questions answerable.

The time for another Police Act has come
India has changed dramatically since 1861. We have become the world’s largest democracy.
We have a written Constitution guaranteeing fundamental rights. We have a massive economy, sophisticated financial markets, digital public infrastructure, artificial intelligence, cybercrime and increasingly complex transnational criminal networks. Yet the country is still debating how to replace the institutional legacy of a police law enacted in the nineteenth century.

The question is no longer whether India needs police reform. That question was answered long ago by commissions, committees, civil society and, most emphatically, by the Supreme Court in Prakash Singh.

The question is: Why has comprehensive reform still not been completed?

The answer cannot be another committee report gathering dust.

India needs a comprehensive, contemporary police law—or coordinated State legislation based upon a nationally agreed constitutional framework—covering professional autonomy, democratic accountability, investigation, forensic capability, technology, citizen rights, police complaints, recruitment, training, transfers, tenure, prosecution and institutional responsibility.

The criminal laws have entered the twenty-first century. The policing institution must now enter it too.

A Republic cannot continue to exercise twenty-first-century constitutional power through the institutional shadows of a nineteenth-century colonial system.

The time has come to finally complete the unfinished task of police reform.

From Clive to the Constitution, India has travelled an extraordinary distance. It is time for its police to complete that journey.