Police Reforms In India: The Story So Far (Updated)
BY INSIGHTS AUGUST 5, 2011
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The police force is far from efficient, it is defective in training and
organization, it is inadequately supervised, it is generally
regarded as corrupt and oppressive, and it has utterly failed to
secure the confidence and cordial cooperation of the people
A.H.L.Fraser, Chairman of the Second Police
Commission(1902)
Since 1902 little has changed. The Police Act of 1861 still guides
and governs our police system. The colonial mindset of the police,
the distrust people had for the police in British India has
continued to date.
So far we have seen either bad reforms or no reforms in making
the police relevant to highly insecure India that is prone to
various threats from both inside and outside its geopolitical
borders.
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Even after a spate of terrorist attacks on our major cities,
unfolding of a series of mega-scams, and serious internal threat
from Maoists, the political class is less willing to loosen its grip on
the police and let it serve the people. Theefforts to beef up
security apparatus, strengthen the intelligence gathering ability,
bring about coherence and coordination between different police
and security agencies, modernizing the police force, enabling our
cities with infrastructure to deter terrorist attacks, and most
importantly making police people friendly all these necessities
have been met with lackadaisical attitude of political
authorities and are mired in red-tapism.
Police in India, which is under the control of ruling parties, are
blind to corruption at various levels and is itself a major partner in
the crime.
Commissions, Committees and the Dustbin
Police is an exclusive subject under the State List ( List II,
Schedule 7 of the Indian Constitution). States can enact any law
on the subject of police. But most of the states are following the
archaic Indian Police Act 1861 with a few modifications. Police
have become the subjects of Parliamentarians and legislators
with a high degree of politicization and allegiance towards ruling
party.
Starting from the second Police Commission in 1902 headed by
A.H.L. Fraser, there have been many commissions and
committees formed to look into reforming the police in India.
Prominent among them are: Gore Committee on Police
Training, the National Police Commission, The Ribeiro Committee
on Police Reforms, The Padmanabhaiah Committee on Police
Reforms (summary), Prakash Singh Vs Union of India SC
directives for Police Reforms and Soli Sorabjee Committee.
The 22 September, 2006 verdict of the Supreme Court in
the Prakash Singh vs Union of India case was the landmark in the
fight for police reforms in India. Unfortunately, even the directions
of SC have not been implemented by the states.
Courting the Court
In 2006 the SC gave 7 binding directions to the states and Union
Territories. The court ordered the states and UTs to implement the
directions immediately either through legislation or executive
order. But, the police politician nexus is so much deep-rooted
that states are reluctant to implement any of the directions. Last
year (November 2010), the SC asked for the personal presence
of Chief Secretaries of 4 major states(Karnataka, WB, Maharashtra
and UP) to learn the progress and give stern directions.
On April 12, 2013, the Supreme Court again sternly asked states
and the Union government to furnish before it the details of
actions taken by them in establishing Security Commissions as
ordered by it in its 2006 verdict.
A bench of Justices G S Singhvi and Kurian Joseph
observed: .instead of improving the police functioning and
approach, what we have seen is a journey from bad to worse in
these seven years,
Instead of following SCs ruling, the Centre called a meeting of
states on April 20, and asked them to implement some of the
recommendations of ARC-2.
Each MLA seeks Circle Inspector and Sub Inspectors of his choice
to be posted in his constituency. The caste, allegiance, amount of
bribes, attitude towards people of the MLAs community, and
flexibility are the characters that determine posting of a
policeman. At the state level, senior Police officers are promoted
to serve the needs of the ruling party. To go slow on certain
cases, to thwart investigation, to deal with political opponents,
to handle underworld businesses police are needed for the
politicians.
If states go to the extent of neglecting the SC directions, it speaks
volumes about usefulness of not reforming police for the
politicians.
Here is an example for non-compliance with SC order.
The Seven Directives
120 For 100,000
The global average ratio of police-population is 270 to 100,000,
where its 120 in India. With far less police ill trained, illequipped and most of them are posted to protect the politicians,
people of India are the least secure (most vulnerable) people in
the world.
For more information on Police Reforms, click here.
If one tries to list the reforms needed, the list goes on. What we
need to understand is the urgency of bringing such reforms.
As in the case of the Lokpal Bill, we need a leadership role of the
civil society and constant coercion towards the states. But the
difficulty lies in the fact that, its been impossible to persuade
each state to enact a law in consonance with the SC directives.
The only hope was SC, and it seems the states need another stern
warning from the court which they got and forgot.
