Urgent Need for Police Reforms

N S Arjun

RECENTLY, the government of Andhra Pradesh and the police administration were jolted by a series of spontaneous protests across the state held by the family members of AP Special Police constables. The protests were sparked off following the death of a constable who was posted in an interior place some 500 km away from his base and was denied leave despite his ill-health. Family members of the constable along with wives and children of hundreds of other constables in the APSP Kondapur battalion, to which they belonged, came on to the streets in the state capital on August 4 protesting the apathy of the police bosses.

Shouting slogans of “We want justice”, the women hurled chappals at an IGP who came to talk to them. Finding themselves at the receiving end from the families of their own men, the top brass of the police scrambled to control the situation. By next day, the protests had spread to several of the 15 battalions of APSP across the state. The protests attracted wide coverage from electronic and print media, putting further pressure on the government. The state Director General of Police announced annulment of the policy changes relating to postings and transfers made recently. This was one of the main demands made by the family members of constables. With this the agitation of police family members ceased.

What this unprecedented agitation by family members of police forces highlighted is the exploitative working conditions prevailing. The slavery-like ‘orderlies’ system is still prevailing with most of the constables forced to work as cooks and gardeners in the houses of their bosses. There is corruption involved in the transfers and postings. The constables, most of whom are coming from economically poor and socially backward sections of society, get hardly any time to spend with their families. All this had created a pent-up resentment against the police bosses and it burst out in the recent agitation.

It must also be noted that our police force is too stretched and works under harsh conditions. Compared to many countries the number of police personnel per person in India is very low. There are only 130 for every 100,000 residents, against around 350 in the United States, Australia, Malaysia etc, or over 550 in Italy,  and other European countries. The norm suggested by the United Nations is 220 per every 100,000 residents. The work conditions of even this meagre force is horrible to say the least. There is an urgent need to improve the work conditions, rationalise transfers and posting policies.

COLONIAL

LEGACY

But working conditions of the police is just one aspect of what is wrong with the police system. There is a whole lot of other things that are in urgent need of reform. It is indeed shameful that we have to say ‘urgent’ even after 65 years of Independence. The British colonialists had enacted ‘Indian Police Act 1861’ in the aftermath of the 1857 Rebellion with the central aim of curbing such revolts in the future. That so many years after Independence, India’s police continues to be governed by this colonial police law -- not in the form of its letter but in the form of its spirit -- is a sad commentary on our rulers undemocratic approach. The brutality with which the British police dealt with the agitators during the freedom struggle is followed by Independent India’s police even today when it deals with agitations by various sections of our people. The orderlies system is also a derivative of the colonial practices. Section 144 of CrPC which prohibits gathering of more than five persons is another glaring example. Conceding that a police force is a coercive arm of the ruling classes, still our police system is today out of tune with the practices of a modern, democratic nation.

The issue of police reforms has been in discussion for over 30 years now. The Janata Party government, which came to power in the elections held after imposition of Emergency in the country, set up a National Police Commission in 1979 to recommend reforms. Over a period of four years, till 1981, this Commission submitted 8 Reports, including a Model Police Act. With the collapse of Janata government and come back of Congress government, these Reports were consigned to dust bin. The government had not even bothered initially to place these Reports in parliament.

In 1996, two former senior police officers approached the Supreme Court through Public Interest Litigation and sought directions for implementation of the recommendations made by National Police Commission. The Supreme Court directed the government to set up a committee to review the Commission's recommendations, and the Ribeiro Committee was born. The Committee, under the leadership of J F Ribeiro, former Mumbai police chief, sat over 1998 and 1999, and produced two reports.

In 2000, the government again set up a third committee on police reform, this time under the stewardship of former union home secretary, K Padmanabhaiah. This Committee released its report in the same year. In 2005, the government put together a group to draft a new Police Act for India. Headed by a senior advocate of the Supreme Court, Soli Sorabjee, the Police Act Drafting Committee submitted a Model Police Act to the union government in late 2006.

After 10 long years, the Supreme Court delivered its judgement in the Prakash Singh versus Government of India in 2006 directing the governments of India and states to implement police reforms. It instructed the central and state governments to comply with a set of seven directives to reform policing in the country. The seven directives of the Supreme Court sought to achieve two  objectives: First, to ensure functional autonomy for the police through security of tenure, streamlined appointments and transfer processes and second to loosen ruling party control over the police through creation of State Security Commissions. It also sought to enhance accountability of the police at an organisational level and also to curb individual misconduct. The Supreme Court required all governments, at the centre and in the states, to comply with the seven directives by the end of 2006 and to file affidavits of compliance by January 3, 2007.

Sadly, instead of realising the need for carrying out the long-pending reforms, most of the state governments chose to fight the Supreme Court order by appealing for review. Most vehement was the Andhra Pradesh government. They hired top lawyers in the Supreme Court for this purpose. As a retired IGP of Andhra Pradesh, C Anjaneya Reddy stated in a round table discussion recently, it was only the LDF government of Kerala that complied with the Supreme Court directives without any fuss and passed Kerala Police Act 2010. The Supreme Court reiterated its judgement and dismissed the contentions of the state governments that went in appeal. After that some state governments replaced their existing Police Acts with new ones either through ordinance route or by legislation incorporating the directives of the Supreme Court. But their reluctance was clearly evident in the way they diluted the directives of the Court for providing functional autonomy to the police or on many other issues.

KEY

ISSUES

The following are some of the key issues identified by Supreme Court and various Commissions which can change the policing system in our country:

1. Creating a buffer between the ruling dispensation and the police by forming State Security Commission, which will be headed by state home minister and comprise leader of opposition and three independent members, including from judiciary. The state DGP will act as secretary. The Commission will periodically discuss issues relating to police and formulate policies. Most states have diluted this by making the Commission’s recommendations non-binding. This has to be rectified and the intention of forming this Commission must be upheld.

2. Providing autonomy to police officers by fixing of tenure, proper transfer policy, providing written explanation in case of transfers etc are some measures that must be in place.

3. At the same time, proper accountability of police officers must be in place to prevent them from becoming law unto themselves. We are witness to blatant encounters, use of third degree methods in custody, shooting to kill protestors while other avenues of controlling law and order are available. To prevent this sort of excesses accountability is needed.

4. Sensitisation of police forces from the perspective of civil rights and human rights.

5. Special emphasis on dealing with atrocities on scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in a non-partisan, professional manner.

Police reforms is a subject that is related to masses also and it cannot be left to just administration/lawyers/human rights activists to fight for them. It is the weakest in the society -- the dalits, tribals, minorities, women -- who are often the most affected by a brutal police. The democratic movement in the country must put this issue of police reforms on the agenda in order to strengthen and preserve our democracy.