PRAYAGRAJ, June 6 -- The Allahabad high court has observed that police officers in Uttar Pradesh are more loyal towards the ruling dispensation than the Constitution. "The vertical loyalty of officers runs not toward the Constitution but toward the ruling dispensation," the court said.

Justice Vinod Diwakar said that Uttar Pradesh's "feudal mindset of politicians and bureaucrats" has long reduced constitutional governance to an instrument of personal dominion rather than public service. "The administrative machinery of the State has, over successive regimes, been susceptible to deep political penetration," the court said in its June 3 order.

It flagged that transfers, postings, and promotions of officers in UP are instruments of politic...