Why govt land not used for training police personnel, asks HC

Hearing a PIL, the Bombay High Court today asked the Maharashtra Government to explain why it was not using the state-owned land for training the police personnel.
A division bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and K K Tated was hearing a suo motu PIL after it took note of a report which said that a large number of vacancies in police department were responsible for delay in probes.
Observing that inadequate police force effects the functioning of the law and order in the state, the court asked a senior officer of Recruitment Department to remain present on March 7.

During the previous hearing, the court had said that the state may exercise the option of using the training centres of other agencies, including those of the neighbouring states, as well as that of central agencies to train new police recruits.
However, the state government informed the court today that the training centres of other agencies cannot be used, because apart from central laws, there were also laws framed by the state, which the police personnel were required to know those as well.
Earlier, the judges had questioned the delay in filling up vacancies after the bench was informed that the recruitment process would begin in April-May 2013 and will be completed by October 2013.

Assistant government pleader Prajakta Shinde told the court that the delay was due to a dearth of training centres. "Training centres are not available. There is no place to train new recruits," she said, adding that the current batch undergoing training will finish in October 2013.
She further said that in Maharashtra, there were only nine police training centres. The court was also informed that 12,699 posts have to be filled under different categories, of which 600-700 will be filled through promotions.