Police accountability in India remains largely internal and opaque. Critically analyse with reference to recent Supreme Court-monitored inquiries.

Police accountability means answerability for the use of coercive power. In India it flows mainly through departmental channels, with external scrutiny arriving late, case-by-case and through courts — a pattern the Supreme Court's 2026 High-Powered Enquiry Committee on the Jantar Mantar police action both illustrates and tests.

Why accountability stays internal and opaque

• Departmental dominance: complaints against police are usually inquired into by the police hierarchy itself, leaving the investigator and the investigated within one chain of command [1].
• Weak external mechanism: Prakash Singh v. Union of India (2006) directed Police Complaints Authorities at State and district level; though most States/UTs report having constituted them, the Parliamentary Standing Committee flagged that their composition is often not independent of the police [1][2].
• Limited disclosure: findings of internal inquiries are rarely published, so the public gets an outcome without a record.

Judicially monitored inquiries as a corrective

• Using its power under Article 142 to do complete justice, the Court constituted a five-member panel headed by Justice R. Subhash Reddy to examine both alleged police excesses and alleged violence against personnel on 20 July 2026 [3].
• Mixing retired judges with a former CBI Director and a retired DGP supplies the operational literacy needed to read control-room logs and detention registers [3].

But the judicial route has its own opacity

• Unlike a statutory Commission of Inquiry under the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1952, whose report is normally laid before the legislature, a court-appointed panel reports only to the Court; publication remains discretionary [4][3].
• The Court dismissed conflict-of-interest objections to the panel as "conjecture and preconceived notions" [3] — defensible at a premature stage, yet it shows that credibility rests on the members' standing rather than on a disclosed rule of composition.
• Being ad hoc, such panels substitute for, rather than build, standing institutions.

Judicial monitoring is therefore a valuable corrective but not a substitute for routine accountability. Time-bound inquiries with published findings, genuinely independent Police Complaints Authorities, and a standing rule barring members drawn from the force under examination would move accountability from episodic judicial rescue to institutional practice — the real promise of Prakash Singh [1].