Less than thousand senior women officers in 20.3 lakh police force: India Justice Report

There are less than a thousand women officers at senior-level posts in the 20.3-lakh strong police force in the country, according to the India Justice Report.

The report that was released on Tuesday in the national capital says of the 2, 45,835 female police personnel, only 960 are within the Indian Police Service (IPS) while 24,322 are in non-IPS ranks.

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The report highlights that there are 1,003 women in the rank of deputy superintendent with Madhya Pradesh having the highest number of 133 such officials.

There are 2, 17,553 women in constabulary ranks that include head constable and constable, the report stated. However, the share of women in the police force has marginally increased to 12 per cent but at officer level, it remained stagnant at 8 per cent in comparison.

89 per cent of the total female police falls under constabulary positions (constable, head constable), the report mentioned.

Notably, in the judiciary, there is a higher share of women judges in the district courts i.e. 38 per cent as compared to high courts where only 14 per cent judges are women and participation of female judges in the Supreme Court is only 6 per cent.

Currently, there is only one chief Justice across the 25 high courts in the country since January 2024, according to the report.

The report also highlighted positive aspects of the system as it stated that the overall share of women in the police has increased from 7.28 per cent in 2016 to 12.32 per cent in 2022.

Also in the same period, the number of females at officer level has increased from 5.5 to 7.9 per cent. However, 15 states and Union territories have less than 10 per cent females in the police force, it added.