India Justice Report 2025: Why Are Women, SC/ST/OBC Missing from India’s Police Roll Call—The Mooknayak Exclusive

New Delhi- Despite decades of policy promises and constitutional safeguards, India's policing system continues to operate as an exclusive club for dominant castes and men.

The latest India Justice Report 2025 lays bare a stark reality: the police remain deeply non-representative, with Dalits, Adivasis, OBCs, and women overwhelmingly clustered in the lowest ranks—if represented at all. In states like Punjab, 25% of posts are reserved for STs, but there are only 3 tribal officers. In the officer class, only 8% are women. This isn't just about numbers—it's about structural denial of power.

The data, based solely on official government sources, reveals skewed inclusion, chronic shortfalls, and deep-rooted inequities that resist correction across the states and Union Territories (UTs).

The report draws a comprehensive picture using January 2023 data across categories of gender and caste—Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), and Other Backward Classes (OBC)—highlighting where states have met or failed their own quotas, in both constabulary and officer ranks. While states like Karnataka show progress, many others continue to reproduce exclusion in the very system meant to uphold justice.

Caste Representation: Gap Between Law And Implementation

Scheduled Castes (SC): Lagging Behind

While states are expected to set caste quotas in line with population proportions, the data reveals chronic underrepresentation—particularly of Scheduled Castes (SCs)—at the officer level:

• Only 5 states met SC officer quotas: Gujarat, Manipur, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, and Goa.

• Just 4 states met quotas across both officer and constabulary levels.

• Twelve states/UTs had officer-level SC shortfalls ranging from 20% to 40%.

• Uttar Pradesh (61%), Rajasthan (52%), Tripura (47%), and Bihar (42%) reported the largest gaps.

At the constabulary level, 11 states met their SC quotas, and 20 states/UTs recorded increases. But huge shortfalls remain:

• Haryana (31%), Goa (57%), and Assam (71%) had the most severe deficits in SC constable representation.

Scheduled Tribes (ST): Progress in Pockets, Gaps Persist

Several states show improvement in ST inclusion:

• Karnataka, Bihar, and Himachal Pradesh met their ST quotas across both ranks.

• Madhya Pradesh reduced its officer-level ST shortfall from 44% (2017) to 4% (2023).

• Kerala also improved, cutting vacancies from 44% to 14%.

However, other states show persistent exclusion:

• Punjab, with a 25% quota, had only 3 ST officers, a 99.8% shortfall.

• Jammu & Kashmir, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and Tripura also record serious deficits.

• 8 states/UTs still face 20–40% shortfalls in ST officer posts.

At the constable level, despite quota mandates:

• Nagaland, with 100% reservation for STs, recorded a 31% shortfall.

• Tripura (28%), Sikkim (25%), Arunachal Pradesh (29%), and Manipur (43%) all show severe under-representation.

• Twelve states/UTs actually saw a rise in ST constable vacancies between 2022 and 2023.

• Telangana, which earlier met its quota, registered a 15% gap in just one year.

Other Backward Classes (OBC): Deep Officer-Level Vacancies

Nine states/UTs have met their OBC officer quotas. But gaps remain:

• Tamil Nadu has exceeded its 40%+ OBC quota.

• Kerala (shortfall of 7%) and Sikkim (10%) are still behind.

• Seven states report OBC officer vacancies between 25%–40%.

Drastic increases from 2022 to 2023:

• Maharashtra's OBC officer shortfall grew from 2% to 35%.

• Madhya Pradesh rose from 15% to 35%.

Worst-performing states:

• Manipur (94%), Rajasthan (74%), Himachal Pradesh (70%), Goa (67%), and West Bengal (63%) have persistently high vacancies since 2017.

Constabulary ranks show somewhat better results:

• 15 out of 28 states/UTs with OBC quotas have met their targets.

• But Goa, Assam, Manipur, and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands continue to show over 60% shortfalls since 2020.

There’s also a troubling trend of rank-based imbalance:

• In Bihar, OBC representation exceeds quotas at the constable level, yet the state reports a 32% officer-level shortfall.

• Similarly, Uttar Pradesh overshoots the quota for OBC constables but has a 31% officer shortfall.

Women in Police: A Long Road to 33%

In 2009, the central government advised states to reserve 33% of police positions for women. Yet, as of January 2023, their overall representation stands at a mere 12.3%, inching up from 11.7% in 2022. The breakdown reveals stark differences across departments:

• 14% of the civil police and District Armed Reserve (DAR) are women.

• A dismal 5% are represented in the Special Armed Police Battalions and Indian Reserve Battalions (IRBs).

State-specific disparities:

• Bihar leads among large and mid-sized states with 24% women representation, up from 21% in 2022, overtaking Andhra Pradesh (22%).

• Yet, five states had no reservations for women in their police forces as of December 2023.

• Seventeen states/UTs still report less than 10% women in police ranks.

The majority of women in police serve at the lowest levels:

• Constables make up 80% of the total police force; women constitute 13% at this level.

• Officer ranks fare worse: only 8% of police officers are women (25,282 nationally).

  • Among these, 52% are Sub-Inspectors, and 25% are Assistant Sub-Inspectors (ASIs).

  • For example, in Bihar, 88% of women police personnel are constables, with just 12% holding officer posts.

  • Maharashtra, where women make up 19% of the force, has a staggering 93% serving as constables.

About India Justice Report (IJR)

The India Justice Report (IJR) 2025 remains the only comprehensive quantitative index using government’s own statistics to rank the capacity of the formal justice system operating in various states.

This IJR is a collaborative effort undertaken in partnership with DAKSH, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, Common Cause, Centre for Social Justice, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy and TISS-Prayas.

First published in 2019, the fourth edition of the IJR continues to track improvements and persisting deficits in each state’s structural and financial capacity to deliver justice based on quantitative measurements of budgets, human resources, infrastructure, workload, and diversity across police, judiciary, prisons, legal aid and Human Rights Commissions for all 36 states and UTs.

The IJR 2025, while celebrating incremental gains, underscores a recurring theme—diversity in numbers does not translate to diversity in power. Women and caste-based underrepresented groups remain clustered in the lower ranks, far from decision-making positions.

With several states making no reservations for women, and most falling behind in fulfilling constitutional mandates for SCs, STs, and OBCs, the data calls for urgent policy correction.

The police, often the first point of contact between the citizen and the state, cannot afford to remain a non-representative institution in a diverse democracy.

As the report concludes, unless there is a time-bound, accountable, and transparent mechanism to monitor diversity across all ranks—not just on paper but in deployment—the Indian police system will continue to mirror, rather than correct, society’s entrenched inequalities.

This is the first part of a multi-series news report based on the India Justice Report 2025, exploring policing, judiciary, prisons, legal aid, and Human Rights Commissions in India.

Source:

India Justice Report: Ranking States on the Capacity of Police, Judiciary, Prisons and Legal Aid’ (2025)