Choosing the route matters more than the wording of the complaint, because the five bodies do different things at very different speeds. Take them in order of how quickly they produce an effect.
1. The departmental hierarchy
A written complaint to the officer above the one complained against is the fastest thing available. In Bengaluru that means the jurisdictional Deputy Commissioner of Police and above him the Commissioner of Police; in a district, the Superintendent of Police and above him the Director General and Inspector General of Police. Send it by email and registered post the same day and ask for an acknowledgement. It is fast, it often stops a continuing problem, it is the least independent, and a closure here decides nothing legally.
2. The Police Complaints Authority
In September 2006 the Supreme Court, in the police reforms case, directed that there be a Police Complaints Authority at the district level for complaints against officers of and up to the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police, and another at the State level for officers of the rank of Superintendent of Police and above, the first headed by a retired District Judge and the second by a retired judge of a High Court or the Supreme Court. Whether that body is constituted and actually sitting varies between States and over time, so check its current position rather than assuming it from the direction.
3. The Karnataka State Human Rights Commission
The Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 allows a State Government to constitute a State Human Rights Commission and applies to it the National Commission's provisions on functions, powers of inquiry and steps after inquiry. A State Commission may inquire only into matters relatable to the State List and the Concurrent List, which covers policing. The limitation is the thing to know: no inquiry may be made after the expiry of one year from the date on which the act constituting the violation is alleged to have been committed.
4. The Karnataka Lokayukta
The Karnataka Lokayukta Act, 1984 allows any person to make a complaint to the Lokayukta or an Upalokayukta involving a grievance or an allegation in respect of action taken by a public servant, the Act defining which officers fall to which. Every complaint must be a statement supported by an affidavit in the prescribed form, and before an investigation the complaint is forwarded to the public servant and the competent authority, who is given an opportunity to comment. This route suits allegations of corruption and abuse of office better than a single incident of excess.
Two things sink more of these than the merits. The first is filing after the one year window at the human rights commission. The second is filing a narrative without an affidavit where the statute requires one. Fix both before you file, and put a one page chronology at the front of every complaint with dates in the left column.
5. The criminal route
Where the conduct amounts to an offence, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 supplies the provisions: wrongful confinement; causing hurt to extort a confession or information; a public servant knowingly disobeying the law with intent to cause injury; and a public servant knowingly disobeying a direction of law prohibiting him from requiring a person's attendance for the purpose of investigation, or regulating how he conducts an investigation, or failing to record information about specified cognizable offences.
The procedure runs through the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023. Give the information at the police station; if it is refused, send the substance in writing and by post to the Superintendent of Police; then apply to the magistrate for an order of investigation, supported by an affidavit. Where the complaint is against a public servant for something arising in the discharge of official duties, the magistrate must first receive a report from the officer superior to him and consider the public servant's own assertions. The same condition applies on the private complaint route.
The sanction filter, stated plainly
Where a public servant not removable except by or with the sanction of the Government is accused of an offence alleged to have been committed while acting or purporting to act in the discharge of official duty, no court shall take cognizance except with the previous sanction of the appropriate Government. The Government must decide within one hundred and twenty days, failing which sanction is deemed accorded, and no sanction is needed for a list of offences that includes a public servant disobeying a direction under the law relating to investigation. Whether an act was done in the discharge of official duty is itself litigated, and it is the commonest reason these prosecutions stall.
Choosing, and running them together
- Start with the departmental letter on the same day, because it costs nothing and it dates the grievance.
- File at the human rights commission well within the year, not at the end of it.
- Take the criminal route only with advice, because the sanction question and the superior officer's report will shape it from the outset.
- Use the High Court where the others have stalled, and our guide on how a writ petition is filed in the High Court explains that filing. The writ is also where compensation is claimed, which our guide on compensation for illegal detention covers.
- Keep the defence of the case against you separate. A complaint against the officer does not answer the accusation, and our note on the remedies open to a person falsely accused deals with that front.