Why is the police under the executive?

As per your query it is understood that you need information about why police department comes under the executive authority and not the judicial authority.

The police department comes under the executive authority. The police must never enter this contest because it requires judicial determination, through due judicial decision-making process.

Decisions which judges make are based on the material collected by investigators, but these are decisions of judges alone. Judges do not collect the evidence. Judges are the decision-makers, while police officers have been spared from this onerous duty. After a crime, big or small, has been committed, the police investigators have a very limited choice, but perform a vital function. To register the case or not, is the first question. If the information constitutes a cognizable offence, the case is registered and its first report or FIR comes into existence. If the information does not constitute a cognizable offence, no case is registered, only a record of the information is kept. When the case has been registered, investigation commences. After the investigation, if an offence appears to have been committed, a report is sent to the court. This is called the final report. This brings to an end the duties of investigators, between the first report and the final report. The matter then goes into the hands of prosecuting lawyers who take it before judges for trial. Lawyers and judges know the law and, therefore, know what crime seems to have been committed, when, where and by whom. Police is a law enforcing instrument that is part of the executive. This is how our country has been designed. The judiciary of our country is most respected.

Hope it helps!

Regards,

Anusha Singh

What is your concern/ problem and locus standi ?

Dear Sir,

All 3 wings stated above are supposed to be independent of one another.I would like to explain this by taking example of  criminal proceedings- 

Prosecutors are supposed to be completely independent of the police department. The reason for these different wings of criminal justice system being independent of one-another is to ensure justice and fair play. Otherwise, suppose police and prosecutor work under the same authority then there is a likelihood of them working in tandem to ensure conviction of accused persons involved in various crimes.

Likewise, if police starts working directly under the judiciary, then judges are likely to be more sympathetic to the investigation conducted by the police and are not likely to be impartial to the accused persons. A biased mind cannot be independent.

It is noteworthy that the police derives its powers of investigation mainly under the Criminal Procedure Code (Cr.P.C.). The power to investigate is an independent statutory power of the police. Even the courts cannot interfere in the exercise of these powers. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that courts cannot give specific directions to police to conduct investigation in this way or that way.

Of course, it is true that recently, in some high profile cases, the Supreme Court has monitored the investigation (and in some rare cases, the high courts also). They have done so in exercise of the superior powers vested in such courts under the highest law of the land, namely, the Constitution of India and not under the Cr.P.C. But, even in these cases, monitoring by Supreme Court generally does not mean giving specific direction to investigate in one way or another. Such monitoring is in the form of seeking periodic reports of investigation (to let police know that court is watching their investigation), keeping political executive out of such cases’ investigation, etc.

It is of utmost necessity that investigation is done by one agency, the prosecution is conducted by another agency, and the job of judging the case and its evidence is done by yet another agency, namely, the judiciary.

Of course, in a way, the actual actions of the police by way of investigation are ultimately scrutinized by the judiciary, at the time of arrest, custody, trial, recording of evidence, etc. But, there is no direct control of the judiciary over police. And, there should not be any such control. As I mentioned above, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that police has its independent statutory powers of conducting investigation in criminal offences.

Lastly, let me also point out that though police department works under the executive (including the political executive), in so far as investigation is concerned even the executive cannot have any control over police, under the provisions of law, such as Cr.P.C.

Hope this helps 

Regards 

What are the facts? What is the context?

what are facts.