The Bombay City Police: A Historical Sketch, 1672-1916

by S. M. Edwardes

These Bhandari night-patrols, as organized by General Wedderburn, were the germ from which sprang the later police administration of the Island. We see the beginnings of police sections and divisions in the three main night-posts with their complement of officers and men; the forerunner of the modern divisional morning report in the daily report of the patrol officer and the fazendar; and the establishment of an armed branch in the fire-training given to the patrols in the evening. The presence of the fazendars was probably based on the occasional need of an interpreter and of having some advisory check upon the exercise of their powers by the patrols. In those early days the fazendar may have supplied the place of public opinion, which now plays no unimportant part in the police administration of the modern city.

Notwithstanding these arrangements, the volume of crime showed no diminution. Murder, robbery and theft were still of frequent occurrence outside the Fort walls: and in the vain hope of imposing some check upon the lawless element, the Bombay Government in August, 1776, ordered parties of regular sepoys to be added to the Bhandari patrols. Three years later, in February, 1779, they decided, apparently as an experiment, to supplant the Bhandari militia entirely by patrols of sepoys, which were to be furnished by “the battalion of sepoy marines”. These patrols were to scour the woods nightly, accompanied by “a peace officer”, who was to report every morning to the acting magistrate.[21] Still there was no improvement, and the dissatisfaction of the general public was forcibly expressed at the close of 1778 or early in the following year by the grand Jury, which demanded a thorough reform of the police.[22] In the course of their presentment they stated that “the frequent robberies and the difficulties attending the detection of aggressors, called loudly for some establishment clothed with such authority as should effectually protect the innocent and bring the guilty to trial”, and they proposed that His Majesty’s Justices should apply to Government for the appointment of an officer with ample authority to effect the end in view.[23]

This pronouncement of the Grand Jury was the precursor of the first appointment of an executive Chief of Police in Bombay. On February 17, 1779, Mr. James Tod (or Todd) was appointed “Lieutenant of Police”, on probation, with an allowance of Rs. 4 per diem, and on March 3rd of that year he was sworn into office; a formal commission signed by Mr. William Hornby, the Governor, was granted to him, and a public notification of the creation of the office and of the powers vested in it was issued. He was also furnished with copies of the regulations in force, and was required by the terms of his commission to follow all orders given to him by the Government or by the Justices of the Peace.[24]

Tod had a chequered career as head of the Bombay police. The first attack upon him was delivered by the very body which had urged the creation of his appointment. The Grand Jury, like the frogs of Æsop who demanded a King, found the appointment little to their liking, and were moved in the following July (1779) to present “the said James Todd as a public nuisance, and his office of Police as of a most dangerous tendency”; and they earnestly recommended “that it be immediately abolished, as fit only for a despotic government, where a Bastille is at hand to enforce its authority”.

The Government very properly paid no heed to this curious volteface of the Grand Jury, and Tod was left free to draft a new set of police regulations, which were badly needed, and to do what he could to bring his force of militia into shape. His regulations were submitted on December 31, 1779, and were approved by the Bombay Council and ordered to be published on January 26th, 1780. They were based upon notifications and orders previously issued from time to time at the Presidency and approved by the Justices, and were eventually registered in the Court of Oyer and Terminer and Gaol Delivery on April 17, 1780. Between the date of their approval by the Council and their registration by the Court, Tod revised them on the lines of the Police regulations adopted in Calcutta in 1778.[25] It was further provided at the time of their registration that “a Bench of Justices during the recess of the Sessions should be authorized from time to time to make any necessary alterations and amendments in the code, subject to their being affirmed or reversed at the General Quarter Sessions of the Peace next ensuing”. Tod’s regulations, which numbered forty-one, were the only rules for the management of the police which had been passed up to that date in a formal manner. They were first approved in Council, as mentioned above, by the authority of the Royal Charter of 1753, granted to the East India Company, and were then published and registered at the Sessions under the authority conveyed by the subsequent Act (13 Geo. III) of 1773. They thus constituted the earliest Bombay Police Code.

Meanwhile Tod found his new post by no means a bed of roses. On November 30th, 1779, he wrote to the Council stating that his work as Lieutenant of Police had created for him many enemies and difficulties. He had twice been indicted for felony and had been honourably acquitted on both occasions: but he still lived in continual dread of blame. “By unremitting and persevering attention to duty I have made many and bitter enemies”, he wrote, “in consequence of which I have been obliged in great measure to give up my bread.” He added that his military title of Lieutenant of Police had proved obnoxious to many, and he offered to resign it, suggesting at the same time that, following the precedent set by Calcutta, he should be styled Superintendent of Police. Lastly he asked the Council to fix his emoluments. The censure of the Grand Jury, quoted in a previous paragraph, indicates clearly the opposition with which Tod was faced; and one cannot but sympathize with an officer whose endeavours to perform his duty efficiently resulted in his arraignment before a criminal court. That he was honourably acquitted on both occasions shows that at this date at any rate he was the victim of malicious persecution.

As regards the style and title of his appointment, the Bombay Council endorsed his views, and on March 29th, 1780, they declared the office of Lieutenant of Police annulled, and created in its place the office of Deputy of Police on a fixed salary of Rs. 3,000 a year. Accordingly on April 5th, 1780, Tod formally relinquished his former office and was appointed Deputy of Police, being permitted to draw his salary of Rs. 3,000 a year with retrospective effect from the date of his first appointment as “Lieutenant”. On the same day he submitted the revised code of police regulations, which was formally registered in the Court of Oyer and Terminer on April 17th. In abolishing the post of Lieutenant the Bombay Government anticipated by a few months the order of the Court of Directors, who wrote as follows on July 5th, 1780:—

“Determined as we are to resist every attempt that may be made to create new offices at the expense of the Company, we cannot but be highly displeased with your having appointed an officer in quality of Lieutenant of Police with a salary of Rs. 4 a day. Whatever sum may have been paid in consequence must be refunded. If such an officer be of that utility to the public as you have represented, the public by some tax or otherwise should defray the charges thereof.”

Before leaving the subject of the actual appointment, it is to be noted that at some date previous to 1780 the office of High Constable was annexed to that of Deputy of Police; for, in his letter to the Court of Sessions asking for the confirmation and publication of his police regulations, Tod describes himself as “Deputy of Police and High Constable”. No information, however, is forthcoming as to when this office was created, nor when it was amalgamated with the appointment of Deputy of Police.[26]