The Policing Gap

Still governed by a colonial-era system, large areas of Uttarakhand rely on untrained revenue officials to police modern crimes, with rising costs to justice and public safety

- By AVANEESH MISHRA

A NARROW, SLIPPERY TRAIL CLIMBS STEEPLY FOR 100 METRES BEFORE YOU REACH the remote chowki in Jakhnikhal tehsil of Pauri Garhwal district. The outpost is a rundown two-storeyed structure, its central hall serving as a shared office for several patwaris—revenue sub-inspectors tasked with policing dozens of villages between them. A rusted lockup now holds old documents and body bags; a toilet has become a records room. A few cracked chairs flank a bench; faded maps hang loose on the walls.

Roshni Sharma, 27, has been posted here just a few months. “We handle land records and police work, both,” says the young patwari, who has seven villages under her jurisdiction. “It becomes hard to do either properly.”

For nearly two centuries, policing in Uttarakhand's hilly interior is carried out not by trained officers, but by revenue officials like Roshni—patwaris, kanungos, lekhpals—whose primary job was to maintain land records, collect taxes, compile census data and issue certificates. This Revenue Police (RP) system, introduced by the British in the early 19th century, still serves nearly half the state's area and about 25 per cent of its population. RP officials can file FIRs, investigate crimes, arrest suspects and submit chargesheets in court, but only up to a point. Cases of serious crime are transferred to the regular police, triggering a slow bureaucratic relay: from patwari to district magistrate (DM) to superintendent of police (SP) to the police station concerned. Evidence is often lost in the lag.

After years of delay and resistance, the system is now under pressure. In May 2024, the Uttarakhand High Court (HC) gave the state one year to implement a 2018 judgment that had ordered the abolition of the RP system. But with 4,421 villages still under the jurisdiction of 478 RP chowkis, a civil contempt petition was filed recently, citing noncompliance. The court has asked the government to file a response.