The Government said it was acting on the State Police Chief's proposal. The Court called for the proposal and found he had asked to keep all three associations
Kerala abolished one of three recognised police associations and split its assets 60:40. Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas holds the right to form an association includes the right to continue it, and that the power to revoke recognition never lay with the Government.
A Government Order that abolished one of the three recognised associations in the Kerala Police, folded its members into the other two and divided its bank accounts and assets in a 60:40 ratio has been set aside by the Kerala High Court. Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas, sitting singly, held that the freedom under Article 19(1)(c) of the Constitution covers not only the formation of an association but its continuance with the composition its members chose, and that under the rules framed by the Central Government the authority to revoke recognition of a police association is the State Police Chief and not the Government at all. The orders constituting two Ad hoc Committees in place of the elected Managing Committees fell with it.
Three associations, forty-seven years, one order
By an order of 4 October 1979, issued on the broad guidelines recommended by the National Police Commission, the Kerala Government permitted the formation of three associations in the police force. One was for Constables and Head Constables, which became the Kerala Police Association. One was for Grade Assistant Sub Inspectors up to Circle Inspectors, which became the Kerala Police Officers Association. The third was for Deputy Superintendents and Superintendents of Police outside the Indian Police Service, which became the Kerala Police Senior Officers Association. They functioned independently for forty-seven years under byelaws approved by the Government.
On 27 July 2026 the Government issued the order under challenge. The Kerala Police Officers Association was abolished. The other two were reorganised, with the abolished association's members inducted into them. Its entire assets — bank accounts, documents, deposits, rights and liabilities — were directed to be distributed between the surviving two in a ratio of 60:40. The State Police Chief was directed to constitute Ad hoc Committees at State and district level, and elections to the reconstituted associations were to be held on or before 30 September 2026.
The day after the order issued, the State Police Chief constituted two Ad hoc Committees of seventeen members each. They assumed charge on 29 July 2026.
The Court recorded the combined effect in a single sentence: apart from abolishing one association, the order had in effect superseded the elected Committees of the two remaining associations with Ad hoc Committees, and even increased their membership.
The State's defence was that the associations exist only because the Government permitted them, that the petitioners were therefore estopped from questioning the power to reorganise, and that the decision followed an examination of the force's organisational framework after the introduction of the grade promotion scheme. The reorganisation, it said, had produced a more representative structure, with the senior officers' association growing from 451 members to 3,769. The Ad hoc Committee was described as a transitional arrangement for implementing the revised membership structure and holding elections, and the redistribution of assets as following the reconstituted membership pattern and the relative strength of the successor associations. It also argued that an association has no fundamental rights under Article 19.
The source of the power the Government claimed
The Additional Advocate General put the State's case on authority squarely: the associations were constituted by a permission granted by the Government, and that permission is traceable to the 1979 order read with Section 109 of the Kerala Police Act, 2011 and Article 33 of the Constitution. Those sources together, it was argued, indicate the Government's power to restrict, abrogate or even cancel the recognition granted — and if the power to cancel exists, the lesser power to restructure must follow. No mala fides or arbitrariness having been attributed, the Court under Article 226 ought not to interfere.
Senior counsel for an added respondent took the point further, submitting that Section 109 itself shows that members of the police force have no right to form an association except with the Government's permission, so the Government can regulate associations by rank and category. A decision to reduce the number of associations from three to two, taken on the State Police Chief's proposal, could not be called mala fide or arbitrary when neither the associations' rights nor their members' rights had been taken away. On this view only a regrouping had been done, based on the entry level of police personnel, and a change in composition does not curtail the right to form an association.
For the petitioners, counsel relied on Kameshwar Prasad v. State of Bihar alongside the later cases, arguing that once members of the police force are granted the right to form an association they also have the right to continue it, and that the orders could not interfere with the internal arrangement of the associations, still less abolish one of them in its entirety. The byelaws already framed and approved by the Government could be changed only through a two-thirds majority of the general body, and the Government could not make structural changes contrary to them. Counsel in the second petition added that the association's own byelaw did not provide for winding up or substitution at all, that no material explained why the Government decided to annihilate an association, and that the general body had never even been consulted.
What Article 33 does, and what it does not do
The Court worked through the constitutional scheme in sequence rather than assuming it.
Every citizen has the right to form an association under Article 19(1)(c), subject to reasonable restrictions under Article 19(4). For members of the armed forces, forces charged with maintenance of public order, intelligence bureaus and specified telecommunication staff, Article 33 permits additional restriction or abrogation. But Article 33, the judgment holds, does not itself restrict or abrogate anything. It makes the right dependent on a Parliamentary legislation. No additional restriction was intended on members of such forces beyond what is necessary for the proper discharge of their duties and the maintenance of discipline.
Parliament's legislation is the Police Forces (Restriction of Rights) Act, 1966, and because the Kerala Police Act, 2011 is in its Schedule, the restrictions in Section 3 apply to the Kerala Police. Section 3(1)(b) bars a member of a police force from being associated with any society, institution, association or organisation — and then carves out two exceptions. The bar does not apply where the body is recognised as part of the force of which he is a member, nor where it is of a purely social, recreational or religious nature.
That exception decides the case. The Parliamentary legislation enacted in consonance with Article 33 does not restrict the right of a member of a police force to be associated with a recognised police association. So long as recognition subsists, the Court held, all the trappings of the fundamental right under Article 19(1)(c) are available to the members of the force and of those associations.
The right to continue, and who may take recognition away
On the content of the right, the judgment rests on the Constitution Bench decision in Smt. Damyanti Naranga v. Union of India, which concerned a statute that altered the composition of the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan by vesting its property in a new statutory body and adding members in whose admission the original members had no say. The Court there held that the right to form an association necessarily implies the right to continue to be associated with only those whom the members voluntarily admit, and that a law introducing members without any option to keep them out, or taking away the membership of those who voluntarily joined, violates the right.
Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas distilled three propositions from that case and from O.K. Ghosh v. E.X. Joseph: that the right implies continuing association with only those voluntarily admitted; that any law introducing members without an option to exclude them, or removing members who voluntarily joined, offends Article 19(1)(c); and that the guarantee is not confined to the initial stage of formation but protects continuance with the composition agreed upon and as regulated by the association's own rules.
The State had relied on Delhi Police Non-Gazetted Karmachari Sangh v. Union of India, where a two-judge Bench distinguished Damyanti Naranga. The Court found it inapplicable on facts: there, recognition had been revoked because the association's articles were not brought into conformity with amended Rules within the prescribed time. That is a different question from restructuring associations whose recognition subsists.
The second strand of reasoning is about authority, and it is the more practical one. Rules 8 and 9 of the Police Forces (Restriction of Rights) Rules, 1966 provide that members of a police force of the same rank who wish to form an association apply to the Inspector General of Police — the State Police Chief in Kerala — who is the authority to grant, refuse or revoke recognition. The proviso requires that before refusing or revoking recognition, the association be given a reasonable opportunity of making a representation. Rule 9 permits suspension of recognition in the interest of the general public or for maintenance of discipline, but only for three months, extendable by a further three, and in no case beyond six months in all.
So the power to revoke is not the Government's; and even if it were, the opportunity to represent is mandatory. In this case the recognition granted to the three associations had not been revoked, either by the State Police Chief or by the Government. The Court's conclusion was that under no circumstances could the Government have interfered with the structure of the recognised police associations.
There was a further difficulty with the byelaws. Those approved by the Government provide that the constitution may be amended only by a two-thirds majority of the members present in the general body, taking effect after the Government's permission. The Government can approve an amendment; it has no authority to bring one about. Here the general body was never consulted.
The proposal the Government relied on said the opposite
During the hearing the Court noticed that although the impugned order referred to a proposal of the State Police Chief dated 1 July 2026, the respondents had not produced a copy. On an oral direction, the Additional Advocate General produced it along with a memo dated 26 September 2026.
It showed that three representations had been received on 15 June 2026 from three individual officers asking that two associations be formed instead of the existing three, on account of practical difficulties. After discussions, the State Police Chief recommended retention of the three associations as ideal, with a slight change in composition.
The Government's order went contrary to that proposal. Instead of retaining three associations as recommended, it reconstituted two after abolishing the third, and directed the abolished association's documents, deposits, rights, liabilities and bank balances to be distributed between them.
Whether the associations could come to court at all
Senior counsel for an added respondent argued that the petitioners lacked standing, that the petitioner in the first writ petition was an unregistered body, and that no such body existed in that name.
The Court dealt with the second petition briefly: it was filed by the abolished association along with two of its members, who alleged violation of their own fundamental rights, so no question of standing arose.
On the first, the objection answered itself. The very respondent raising it had stated in his additional counter affidavit that he was the elected General Secretary of the Kerala Police Association, conceding its existence. The impugned order itself referred to that association as a recognised body.
On the broader point, the judgment accepts that an association has no fundamental right — only citizens have the fundamental right to form one — and then draws the distinction that matters. A recognised association has a legal right to ensure that its byelaws are not infringed by anyone, including the Government. The petitioner being a body statutorily recognised under the Kerala Police Act, 2011, whose right to decide who may be admitted to its fold had allegedly been trampled upon and whose elected Committees had been removed, the petition was maintainable. The Court cited Confederation of Ex-Servicemen Associations v. Union of India, Fertilizer Corporation Kamgar Union (Regd.), Sindri v. Union of India and Akhil Bharatiya Soshit Karamchari Sangh (Railway) v. Union of India as relevant on that question, against the added respondent's reliance on a recent Kerala decision concerning a pensioners' forum.
It is worth noting what the judgment did not need to decide. There is no finding that the Government acted in bad faith, and none on whether a reorganisation of police associations could ever be justified. The State's argument that the grade promotion scheme had created practical difficulties in the existing membership pattern was not rejected on its merits. What defeated the order was the route taken: the power to touch recognition lies with the State Police Chief, not the Government; the byelaws could be amended only by the general body; and the proposal the Government cited as its basis recommended the opposite of what it did.
Order
The Government Order of 27 July 2026 produced in both writ petitions was set aside, as were the two orders of 28 July 2026 by which the State Police Chief constituted the Ad hoc Committees, produced in the second petition.
Both writ petitions were allowed.