Why in news?

Videos from the July 20 "Sansad Chalo" protest in Delhi showed police and Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel in civilian clothes, or in uniform without visible nameplates. This has triggered a debate on the legality of unidentified policing during crowd control situations.

What’s in Today’s Article?

• What Triggered the Controversy?
• Is Hiding Identity Legal?
• Why Police Avoid Identification?
• Conclusion

What Triggered the Controversy?

• Protesters organised by the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), demanding action over the NEET paper leak and the resignation of the Education Minister, marched towards Parliament.
• Police lathi-charged the swelling crowd, leading to violent clashes and injuries on both sides.
• Social media videos allegedly showed unidentified men in civilian clothes using police-style lathis against protesters, while uniformed personnel without nameplates ignored questions about their identity.
• Delhi Police has not officially responded, but has reportedly directed personnel at the protest site to report in uniform going forward.

Is Hiding Identity Legal?

• Certain operations — particularly intelligence gathering — genuinely require concealment of identity or even impersonation.
• However, routine policing is bound by statutory procedure and judicial guidelines, which generally require identifiability.
• Statutory basis
  • Maintenance of public order is governed by Chapter XI of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), Sections 148–160 (earlier Chapter X of the CrPC, formerly Chapter IX).
  • While the law does not explicitly mandate identification, only a magistrate or a "police officer" is empowered to order a crowd to disperse — implying that the officer issuing such a command must be identifiable.
  • Legal experts argue that an unidentifiable person cannot lawfully exercise this statutory power.
• Judicial precedent:
  • In DK Basu vs State of West Bengal (1997), the Supreme Court mandated that arresting officers must carry clear, visible identification.
  • Though this ruling concerned arrests rather than crowd control, it reflects the judiciary's broader expectation that police be identifiable while exercising coercive authority.
  • In August 2025, the Andhra Pradesh High Court questioned how citizens could recognise plainclothes personnel as police while they discharged official duties, in a case involving a YSRCP MLA accused of obstructing police work.

Why Police Avoid Identification?

• Security concerns: The practice reportedly originated in conflict zones like Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, and Chhattisgarh, where personnel avoided nameplates and rank insignia to reduce the risk of being targeted by militants.
• Personal safety in routine duty: Officers argue visible identification can expose them to prolonged litigation, online harassment, and threats to their families.
• Practice has spread: What began as a conflict-zone safeguard has gradually extended into routine law-and-order policing, a trend experts describe as contentious when applied outside genuine security threats.
• Logistical compulsion: When additional personnel are urgently summoned to a protest site, all available officers from a unit — including those in plain clothes — are required to report, often due to overwhelming crowd size rather than deliberate strategy.
• Acknowledged Ambiguity
  • While the law does not strictly bar deploying plainclothes personnel, senior officers concede the practice introduces ambiguity into already volatile protest situations.
  • However, they argue such deployment remains important because anti-social elements can infiltrate protests and trigger violence or arson — special branch personnel are specifically tasked with blending into crowds to gather intelligence and monitor troublemakers.

Conclusion

The plainclothes policing debate captures a real tension between operational security concerns and democratic accountability.

While Indian law does not explicitly bar unidentified policing, statutory logic and judicial precedent point toward identifiability as essential to the legitimate exercise of police power — making transparency, not anonymity, the constitutional default for routine law enforcement.