Command responsibility versus individual culpability: how should accountability be fixed for excessive use of force by security forces in a democracy?

Article 19(1)(b) guarantees peaceful assembly [1], and the state's monopoly on force is held in trust for that freedom. When force turns excessive, democracies must decide whether liability rests with the personnel who struck, or the chain that deployed them — the honest answer is both, in layers.

The case for individual culpability

• Force is exercised personally; criminal law attaches to the act, and punishing the specific wrongdoer deters at the point of contact.
• NHRC guidelines make a magisterial enquiry mandatory in deaths in custody or in the course of police action, precisely to identify negligence or dereliction by named public servants [2].
• Weakness: it invites scapegoating of junior ranks while decision-makers remain untouched.

The case for command responsibility

• Deployment strength, weapon issue (lathis, tear gas, water cannons) and rules of engagement are superior officers' choices, not a constable's.
• In the NEET-UG protest case, after the Supreme Court quashed FIRs against protesters, the petitioner sought accountability at the level of senior-most officers and the Union Home Ministry, whose directives allegedly governed the deployment [3].
• Weakness: diffuse command liability can dilute individual responsibility into institutional apology.

Fixing accountability: a layered framework

• Proportionality first — graded force, documented authorisation, and mandatory preservation of body-camera, CCTV and control-room records to make the chain traceable.
• Independent scrutiny — functioning Police Complaints Authorities at state and district level, as directed in Prakash Singh (2006) [4].
• Structural insulation — the Second ARC's Fifth Report, "Public Order", urged separating law-and-order from investigation and shielding police from political interference [5].

Accountability is therefore not a choice between the hand and the head, but a continuum: the operator answers for the act, the commander for the order, and the political executive for the policy. Fully staffed complaints authorities, credible internal audit of force, and judicially supervised enquiries can align policing with constitutional rights while preserving operational morale.