Membership came with rank, not choice: Kerala HC upholds abolition of a police association

A Division Bench set aside a Single Judge ruling that had quashed the 27 July 2026 order abolishing the Kerala Police Officers Association, holding that members never chose their associations, so Article 19(1)(c) was not engaged and the restructuring passes the rationality test.

A police officer in Kerala does not apply to join the association for his rank. The State puts him in it, and moves him to another when he is promoted. On 12 November 2026 the Kerala High Court held that this is why the officers had no fundamental right to resist the abolition of one of their three associations.

A Division Bench of Justice A.K. Jayasankaran Nambiar and Justice Preeta A.K. allowed four writ appeals by the State and by two officers. It set aside a Single Judge's judgment of 29 September 2026 and dismissed the writ petitions against the Government order of 27 July 2026.

One association abolished, ranks redistributed

A Government order of 1979 permitted three associations in the Kerala Police. The Kerala Police Association took Civil Police Officers and Senior Civil Police Officers. The Kerala Police Officers' Association took Grade Assistant Sub Inspectors, Assistant Sub Inspectors, Grade Sub Inspectors, Sub Inspectors and Inspectors.

The Kerala Police Senior Officers' Association took Deputy Superintendents and non-IPS Superintendents of Police. The order of 27 July 2026 abolished the middle association. Grade Assistant Sub Inspectors, Assistant Sub Inspectors and Grade Sub Inspectors moved to the first, and Sub Inspectors and Inspectors to the third.

Five grounds against the order

Two writ petitions, W.P.(C) 26155 of 2026 and 26295 of 2026, challenged the order. One was filed by the Kerala Police Association. The other came from the Kerala Police Officers' Association and two of its members, a Sub Inspector and an Assistant Sub Inspector.

They argued that the Government had no power to issue the order, and that a recognised association could not be abolished unilaterally while the 1979 order stood. They said the restructuring was hasty and made without hearing the abolished body.

They also said the bye-law procedure for amendment was ignored and that Article 19(1)(c) was infringed. Under the bye-laws, an amendment needs a two-thirds majority of those present in the general body, subject to Government approval.

What the Single Judge decided

The Single Judge accepted that the right of police personnel to form associations is not absolute. It is subject to Article 19(4) read with Article 33 and the law Parliament made under it.

But Rule 8 of the Police Forces (Restriction of Rights) Rules, 1966, he found, required an opportunity to make a representation before an association's recognition is revoked. No such opportunity was given here.

The Government could approve an amendment to the bye-laws, the Single Judge held, but could not make one. Relying on Smt. Damyanti Naranga v. Union of India and O.K. Ghosh v. E.X. Joseph, he held that Article 19(1)(c) protects the right to continue an association with the composition its members agreed.

He quashed the order as an intrusion on that right. The Kerala Police Association, though it had no fundamental right, could still sue to protect its bye-laws, he held.

The State's case: ranks no longer matched duties

The State told the Division Bench that the 1979 pattern predated the Grade Promotion Scheme of 2008. Under the scheme, officers designated Grade Assistant Sub Inspector or Grade Sub Inspector stay in the Constabulary Wing, with their service conditions governed by its rules. Yet they sat in an association meant for another stream.

Recruitment, promotion and transfer policy differ between the Constabulary Wing and directly recruited Sub Inspectors and above, it said. The order followed the State Police Chief's recommendation and, as the State put it, was a considered policy decision.

The State added that the Senior Officers' Association had only 451 members before the order and about 3,769 after it.

The contesting respondents also defended the order. They said it grouped personnel by entry level and took no existing right away. They put the strength of the constabulary group at 50,973 and said police, as a disciplined force, cannot claim Article 19(1)(c) as other citizens do.

In their account, the order was a regrouping, not a structural change. They said the officers' association was in effect renamed, and that the rights members enjoyed continued.

No right to begin with

Sri George Poonthottam, senior counsel, appeared for the two officers who appealed, and Additional Advocate General P.A. Mohammed Shah for the State. Sri P.C. Sasidharan appeared for the Kerala Police Officers' Association and Sri Babu S. Nair for the Kerala Police Association.

The appellants argued that the associations were not formed by members exercising Article 19(1)(c), so there was no fundamental right to infringe. They also said Rule 8 of the 1966 Rules did not apply, because the 1979 associations were of a different kind from those the rule contemplates.

Police rights are already trimmed

Justice Nambiar, who wrote the judgment, began with the constitutional scheme. Article 19(1)(c) includes the right to continue an association, and to keep its composition from being altered without members' consent.

It does not apply where an association is the creation of a statute and members had no freedom to choose, the Bench said, citing Daman Singh v. State of Punjab and Zoroastrian Co-operative Housing Society v. District Registrar. Without a choice to join, it added, there is no freedom exercised at all.

Article 33 lets Parliament restrict or abrogate Part III rights for the police. The Police Forces (Restriction of Rights) Act, 1966 covers forces under the Kerala Police Act.

Under it, a police officer cannot join a trade union, or any body that is not part of the force or purely social, recreational or religious, without consent. He cannot communicate with the press or publish except in the bona fide discharge of duty or on literary, artistic or scientific matters.

Where Parliament acts under Article 33 to ensure proper discharge of duty and discipline, the court said, it does not examine the suitability of the restriction, citing Lt. Col. Prithi Pal Singh Bedi v. Union of India.

A person joining the force accepts a code of conduct, and the content of his Article 19(1)(c) right is, in the Bench's words, significantly reduced.

Rank decided membership, not choice

On the facts, the Bench found that the 1979 associations were formed by the Government itself, by rank. Members had no role in forming them. Membership was automatic and shifted with promotion.

The court framed the question this way:

“whether such members can be seen as having formed the associations concerned and obtained their memberships therein consequent to the exercise of any right traceable to Article 19(1)(c) read with Article 19(4) and Article 33 of the Constitution of India ?” (para 10)

It answered in the negative, because fundamental rights are individual rights exercised through individual agency. The Bench held that

“that agency is seen lacking in the writ petitioners” (para 10)

So the restructuring by the State executive could not be seen as infringing Article 19(1)(c).

Bye-laws govern the committee, not existence

The Bench then asked whether an association formed by the Government can challenge the State's restructuring of it. The State, it said, must be conceded the power to form associations and to frame bye-laws for their functioning through committees elected by the general body.

The requirement that bye-law amendments get Government approval, it reasoned, shows that the State is the final authority to permit the formation and continuation of such associations. Bye-laws cannot by themselves confer any right over formation or continuation.

The only rights members hold under bye-laws, it held, concern efficient functioning and election of office bearers. The right to amend them is restricted, being subject to Government approval, and gives no right, fundamental or otherwise, in forming or staying in an association.

The judgment does not separately rule on Rule 8 of the 1966 Rules, which had weighed with the Single Judge.

Judged as policy, tested for rationality

The Bench traced the 1979 order to the State's executive power under Article 162, and its continuance to Section 109 of the Kerala Police Act, 2011, as controlled by the constitutional scheme. Forming and restructuring associations are matters of policy, it held, and are tested on the principles for judicial review of policy.

The 1979 rules describe each association as a totally non-political body. Members cannot strike, withhold services or take part in demonstrations, and cannot seek affiliation with outside organisations or federations.

Unless the action fails the test of rationality against the associations' main objects, the court said, it must not interfere under Article 226. Those objects, taken from the rules appended to the 1979 order, include forging unity among ranks, voicing members' genuine grievances and looking after the welfare of dependants of officers killed or disabled on duty.

The Bench read the 27 July order, with the State's counter affidavit, as aiming at the same ends: each association to represent personnel with common service conditions, promotional avenues, transfer policies and grievance mechanisms. It found no variance from the objects, and called the order an attempt to pursue them more efficiently.

Order

The writ appeals, W.A. Nos. 2070, 2072, 2100 and 2103 of 2026, were allowed. The judgment of the Single Judge dated 29 September 2026 was set aside.

The writ petitions, W.P.(C) Nos. 26155 and 26295 of 2026, were dismissed insofar as they challenged the Government order of 27 July 2026. There was no order as to costs.