POLICE REFORM NOW MUST BECOME AN IMPORTANT ELECTION ISSUE
The general elections are only a few months away. It is time for political parties to draft manifestoes, decide strategies and choose contestants. The civil society must discuss what should dominate the agenda of the major parties. What type of governance do the public want?
Of the various challenges to governance being faced in our country, two are major – ensuring sustained development of the economy at a brisk pace and providing a sense of security to the public by controlling crime and violence in society. The two, in fact, are closely linked. A developing economy requires a climate of peace and stability. It is important for the political parties to realise that if development has to take place, crime and violence must be controlled. Crime causes not only immense social and economic loss; it produces tremendous individual human suffering too. That is why the UN Commission on Crime Control and Criminal Justice maintains that to feel safe from crime is as important to a person as access to food, shelter, education and health.
Controlling crime and maintaining internal security is dependent upon the establishment of a police force, which is efficient, honest and professional to the core. Do we have such a police force? Not, if one goes by the media reports, studies done by expert groups and the responses of the common men.
Many, including the Supreme Court, have voiced the need for police reform. Two recent incidents, though divergent in nature, have further put it in sharp focus. One was the incident of terrorist violence that raged in Mumbai for about 60 hours and brought out the deficiencies in the training and equipment of the police force and the conditions, including the type of political leadership, under which they serve. The other was the murder of PWD engineer Manoj Gupta in UP by the BSP MLA and the response of the local police. The fact that some policemen were also a part of the extortion racket and complicit in murder shows that in many parts of the country policing has become as crimialised as politics. In fact, criminalised policing is as much a result of criminalised politics as its cause and both are a great danger to the continued existence of our democratic polity
Police reform therefore becomes important not only for achievement of economic progress but also for the survival of our democratic system. The police can be a great support as well as a major threat to democracy. They support democracy when they function to serve the rule of law and they threaten democracy when they become a part of a corrupt spoils system to serve the wishes of a powerful leader or party and when they become a law unto themselves.
The Mumbai incidents also revealed that the police, despite their inadequacies and shortcomings and despite being constantly reviled, can be highly heroic and valorous in times of emergencies. The police in this country are a sizeable force, more than 2.3 million strong. This huge reservoir of manpower can do enormous good to society, provided they are utilised to serve the community and not merely the interests of the elite class and people in positions of power.
Presently, the public do not trust the police. This lack of public faith not only affects the performance of the police force in controlling crime and in maintaining law and order, but ultimately gets translated into lack of goodwill and support for the political party which is wielding power. This happens because the police are the most visible and ubiquitous of all the government agencies and it is their acts of commission and omission, which determine to a considerable extent the public perceptions about the quality of governance being provided to them. . A professionally efficient and an honest police force can give far better returns in terms of winning public support for the political party in power than a force, which is misused for selfish purposes. A misused police force gets corrupt and brutalised and in turn abuses its powers. The victims in such cases are mostly the common poor persons who constitute the vote bank.
The politicians must realise that ultimately it is in their own interests to reform the police. The police right since the Emergency days have been easily and conveniently used as a stick with which to beat one’s opponents into submission. What the politicians in power forget is that the same stick can be used against them too when they are out of power. The chief ministers may come and go but the police go on forever. If it is easy for one chief minister to misuse the police for narrow selfish considerations, it is easier for his follower to do the same. What is not realised is that till the police are reformed, nobody in this country is safe
The need for police reforms is self-evident and urgent and the resolve to reform such a vital organization must figure prominently in the agenda of political parties in the coming elections. Public must make it clear that the existing system is unacceptable to them; they want a reformed police force and would support only the parties which promise to reform the police within a fixed time schedule.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Friday, January 2, 2009
NATIONAL INVESTIGATION AGENCY
COMBATING TERROR THROUGH THE NATIONAL INVESTIGATION AGENCY
Of all the measures taken by the UPA government to deal with terrorist incidents, the establishment of a National Investigation Agency has received the widest attention. While some claim it to be an important step in the right direction, others think it is too little done too late and somewhat unsatisfactorily.
The idea of setting up such an agency is not new. Numerous expert bodies, like the National Human Rights Commission, Soli Sorabjee Committee, Padmanabahiah Committee, Justice Malimath Committee and Parliamentary Sanding Committee of the MHA have recommended its establishment.
Way back in 2001, the ruling BJP government at the centre had prepared a proposal to establish a Central Law Enforcement Agency to investigate certain crimes having interstate or international ramifications, like terrorist incidents, arms and drug trafficking, hijacking, money laundering, counterfeiting of currency, espionage and crimes targeting national infrastructure. The proposal fell through because some of the chief ministers were not willing to accept it. They felt it was an unwarranted and avoidable intrusion into their jurisdiction.
The recent Mumbai incidents led to the revival of the demand to treat certain types of crime as a national problem and controlling them as a federal responsibility. The rationale for the demand is convincing. Criminals now a days often cross interstate as well as international boundaries, using highly sophisticated methods, equipment and tactics to commit such crimes. The state police forces’ capability to prevent, investigate and deal with such crimes or to apprehend such criminals is limited by their reach, training and resources. The record of the state police forces in dealing with even ordinary crimes and law and order disturbances has been rather poor. They cannot be expected to either prevent major incidents of terrorist crimes or investigate them successfully. Terror requires fighting on many fronts and a well-established national agency can coordinate the preventive and investigative efforts with other departments much more speedily and efficiently than the state police forces can do on their own.
Public debate on the subject has revolved around two main issues. One is the Parliament’s competence to enact this law. Many arguments are given to support the competence. According to Soli Sorabjee Committee, offences aimed at destabilising the country cannot be construed as falling within “public order.” Terrorist activities blur the line of distinction between external aggression and internal disturbance. Measures taken to curb such activities are for defense of India and therefore covered in terms of Entry 1 of the Union List of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution. The other contention is that residuary powers conferred by Article 248 read with Entry 97 of the Constitution authorise the Parliament to legislate on the subject. In addition, Entry 8 of the Union List covers “Central Bureau of Intelligence and Investigation.”
The other issue relates to the substance of the National Investigating Agency Bill, 2008 and its enforcement. The legislation shows all the signs of being drafted in unseemly haste.
The charter of this legislation is narrow and limited. As per the Preamble and Section 3(1) of the Act, the Agency has been established only to investigate and prosecute the scheduled offences. The Act is conspicuously silent about other functions, like preventing and controlling security related crimes, identifying and assessing the nature and scope of terrorist threats to the country, collecting and analysing intelligence etc.
Section 4(1) of the Act vests the superintendence of the Agency in the central government. The word ‘Superintendence’ has not been defined. There is no provision in the legislation to ensure the Agency will be autonomous in its functioning and not be misused. The record of the other central agency i.e. the CBI does not inspire confidence. There is enough evidence to show that the ruling party at the center has often misused it to either favour ones own or to harass opponents. An Agency of this type cannot function effectively without full support and cooperation of the state governments. Whether this Agency will get cooperation from the states ruled by opposition parties is yet to be settled.
Administration of the Agency vests in an officer of the rank of DGP, but the Act does not prescribe a procedure that ensures the selection of the best from the police forces in the country. The absence of such a provision is striking, because selection of the heads of police forces in the country, both at the centre and states, has often been guided by considerations other than merit.
Section 6 of the Bill requires the state government to inform the central government about the commission of a scheduled offence. It is for the central government to decide, firstly, whether it is a scheduled offence and, secondly, whether it is a fit case to be taken up for investigation by the Agency. Section 6 debars the state government to proceed with the investigation once the Agency has been asked to do so. Since the Centre has been given the overriding discretion to pick and chose what cases to investigate and prosecute, it creates an unwholesome concentration of power at the central level. The center may relegate the less glamorous investigations and prosecutions to the states. The idea in some cases may be to show that a particular state is not capable of dealing with important matters affecting national security.
As per the Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Act, the national investigating agency is being established in a “concurrent jurisdiction framework” However, investigation, as defined in Section 2 (h) of the Cr P C, is mainly police work and ‘Police’ is an item confined to the State List in the Constitution. That is why Section 6 of the Delhi Special Police Act that governs the functioning of the CBI prohibits its jurisdiction in a state without the consent of its government. The center is therefore walking on a very tight rope by setting up this police agency the way it has been done.
(Original version of the article published in the Indian Express dated January 2, 2009)
Of all the measures taken by the UPA government to deal with terrorist incidents, the establishment of a National Investigation Agency has received the widest attention. While some claim it to be an important step in the right direction, others think it is too little done too late and somewhat unsatisfactorily.
The idea of setting up such an agency is not new. Numerous expert bodies, like the National Human Rights Commission, Soli Sorabjee Committee, Padmanabahiah Committee, Justice Malimath Committee and Parliamentary Sanding Committee of the MHA have recommended its establishment.
Way back in 2001, the ruling BJP government at the centre had prepared a proposal to establish a Central Law Enforcement Agency to investigate certain crimes having interstate or international ramifications, like terrorist incidents, arms and drug trafficking, hijacking, money laundering, counterfeiting of currency, espionage and crimes targeting national infrastructure. The proposal fell through because some of the chief ministers were not willing to accept it. They felt it was an unwarranted and avoidable intrusion into their jurisdiction.
The recent Mumbai incidents led to the revival of the demand to treat certain types of crime as a national problem and controlling them as a federal responsibility. The rationale for the demand is convincing. Criminals now a days often cross interstate as well as international boundaries, using highly sophisticated methods, equipment and tactics to commit such crimes. The state police forces’ capability to prevent, investigate and deal with such crimes or to apprehend such criminals is limited by their reach, training and resources. The record of the state police forces in dealing with even ordinary crimes and law and order disturbances has been rather poor. They cannot be expected to either prevent major incidents of terrorist crimes or investigate them successfully. Terror requires fighting on many fronts and a well-established national agency can coordinate the preventive and investigative efforts with other departments much more speedily and efficiently than the state police forces can do on their own.
Public debate on the subject has revolved around two main issues. One is the Parliament’s competence to enact this law. Many arguments are given to support the competence. According to Soli Sorabjee Committee, offences aimed at destabilising the country cannot be construed as falling within “public order.” Terrorist activities blur the line of distinction between external aggression and internal disturbance. Measures taken to curb such activities are for defense of India and therefore covered in terms of Entry 1 of the Union List of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution. The other contention is that residuary powers conferred by Article 248 read with Entry 97 of the Constitution authorise the Parliament to legislate on the subject. In addition, Entry 8 of the Union List covers “Central Bureau of Intelligence and Investigation.”
The other issue relates to the substance of the National Investigating Agency Bill, 2008 and its enforcement. The legislation shows all the signs of being drafted in unseemly haste.
The charter of this legislation is narrow and limited. As per the Preamble and Section 3(1) of the Act, the Agency has been established only to investigate and prosecute the scheduled offences. The Act is conspicuously silent about other functions, like preventing and controlling security related crimes, identifying and assessing the nature and scope of terrorist threats to the country, collecting and analysing intelligence etc.
Section 4(1) of the Act vests the superintendence of the Agency in the central government. The word ‘Superintendence’ has not been defined. There is no provision in the legislation to ensure the Agency will be autonomous in its functioning and not be misused. The record of the other central agency i.e. the CBI does not inspire confidence. There is enough evidence to show that the ruling party at the center has often misused it to either favour ones own or to harass opponents. An Agency of this type cannot function effectively without full support and cooperation of the state governments. Whether this Agency will get cooperation from the states ruled by opposition parties is yet to be settled.
Administration of the Agency vests in an officer of the rank of DGP, but the Act does not prescribe a procedure that ensures the selection of the best from the police forces in the country. The absence of such a provision is striking, because selection of the heads of police forces in the country, both at the centre and states, has often been guided by considerations other than merit.
Section 6 of the Bill requires the state government to inform the central government about the commission of a scheduled offence. It is for the central government to decide, firstly, whether it is a scheduled offence and, secondly, whether it is a fit case to be taken up for investigation by the Agency. Section 6 debars the state government to proceed with the investigation once the Agency has been asked to do so. Since the Centre has been given the overriding discretion to pick and chose what cases to investigate and prosecute, it creates an unwholesome concentration of power at the central level. The center may relegate the less glamorous investigations and prosecutions to the states. The idea in some cases may be to show that a particular state is not capable of dealing with important matters affecting national security.
As per the Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Act, the national investigating agency is being established in a “concurrent jurisdiction framework” However, investigation, as defined in Section 2 (h) of the Cr P C, is mainly police work and ‘Police’ is an item confined to the State List in the Constitution. That is why Section 6 of the Delhi Special Police Act that governs the functioning of the CBI prohibits its jurisdiction in a state without the consent of its government. The center is therefore walking on a very tight rope by setting up this police agency the way it has been done.
(Original version of the article published in the Indian Express dated January 2, 2009)
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Growth of CPMFs
CENTRAL PARA MILITARY ORGANISATIONS
Since Independence, the Government of India has set up a number of para military forces to deal with emergencies. The first post Independence specialized para military force created by the central government was the Indo Tibetan Border Police, raised in the wake of Chinese aggression in 1962. Its main role was to provide protection to IB’s posts, secure Indo Tibetan border and check border crimes. The Chinese aggression led to the creation of another force in 1963, the SSB, which is now known as Seema Shastra Bal. Then came the BSF following the Indo Pak war in 1965, with more or less similar role as that of ITBP, but confined to border with Pakistan. Promoting a sense of security among the border population and preventing border crimes, including unauthorised infiltration across the international border, constituted its main charter
With the growth of public sector undertakings in the country, the government set up a Central Industrial Security Force in 1969 mainly to look after the security of public sector undertakings. Its jurisdiction is now being extended to cover even private sector undertakings
Another federal contingency force called the National Security Guard was set up in 1984 (year of operation Blue Star) to handle anti hijack and rescue operations and to support other organisations in dealing with ant terrorist activities The central para-military police registered phenomenal growth in the country during the last few decades. In 1961, only two forces existed – the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the Assam Rifles (AR). The CRPF then was only 14 battalion strong; while on january1, 2007 it consisted of 201 battalions with a sanctioned strength of 2.6 laks. The BSF was set up in 1965 by amalgamating twenty-five-and-a-half state armed police forces; but by 2007 it had become 157 battalions strong and its total sanctioned strength had increased to slightly more than 2 laks. Other para-military forces at the centre have seen similar expansion. The total combined strength of the central para military organizations on 1.1.2007 was 7,30,827. They constituted less than 50% of the total strength of the state police forces, which were 16,32,651 strong at the end of the year 2006.
This huge expansion, which is still continuing, has been necessitated by an increasing deployment of central para-military forces on law and order duties. The Central Government has been playing a wide and active role in maintaining law and order in different parts of the country, something that was not envisaged by the Constitution of India for them, except in emergencies. Under the Constitution of India, Police and Public Order are State subjects. Law enforcement is a civil function and it is the responsibility of the state governments to discharge this function effectively through their own police forces.
Most state governments have failed to do so. They have neglected the development of their police forces and have instead depended on the central para-military assistance to meet urgent and emergent law and order needs. This heavy dependence on the central assistance has been the result as well as one of the causes of comparatively poor development of the state police forces. If the need to modernize their police forces and develop them as professional, well equipped, well trained and well led organisations had been recognized by the state governments, they would have performed much better even in dealing with terrorist incidents than they are doing now. The state police forces are in bad shape because there is no political will to make them professionally efficient.
Almost all central para military forces have deviated from the original role assigned to them. The BSF as well as ITBP have no longer remained merely border securing forces, while the SSB has now become one on Indo Nepal border. NSG is being used more on providing security to VIPs than on anti terror activities. All organisations, including CISF, have often been deployed on internal security duties.
Expansion has not merely been rapid but also unplanned, leading to various problems of discipline and morale resulting from poor career planning policies. In every organization, there is considerable stagnation of departmental officers, who were taken from a wide variety of sources, including army, state police forces and directly from the market. The central government has kept most top management posts in these organisations for the IPS, which has created discontent with departmental officers often going to courts.
Fairly sizeable sum of money is being spent on the Police. The state governments spent about Rs 22 thousand crores on their police forces in 2006-07, while the central government spent Rs 11 thousand crores on its seven para military organiations. Thus even if the central expenditure on its other police organisations like IB, CBI, BPR&D, NCRB, NICFS, DCPW and on UT Police Forces is not taken into account, the total expenditure on the Police in the country was more than Rs 33 thousand crores in 2006-07, not a small sum by any means. This is public money. Are the public getting adequate returns on their money? Considering the climate of insecurity and fear that prevails in the country, the answer is a big No.
Since Independence, the Government of India has set up a number of para military forces to deal with emergencies. The first post Independence specialized para military force created by the central government was the Indo Tibetan Border Police, raised in the wake of Chinese aggression in 1962. Its main role was to provide protection to IB’s posts, secure Indo Tibetan border and check border crimes. The Chinese aggression led to the creation of another force in 1963, the SSB, which is now known as Seema Shastra Bal. Then came the BSF following the Indo Pak war in 1965, with more or less similar role as that of ITBP, but confined to border with Pakistan. Promoting a sense of security among the border population and preventing border crimes, including unauthorised infiltration across the international border, constituted its main charter
With the growth of public sector undertakings in the country, the government set up a Central Industrial Security Force in 1969 mainly to look after the security of public sector undertakings. Its jurisdiction is now being extended to cover even private sector undertakings
Another federal contingency force called the National Security Guard was set up in 1984 (year of operation Blue Star) to handle anti hijack and rescue operations and to support other organisations in dealing with ant terrorist activities The central para-military police registered phenomenal growth in the country during the last few decades. In 1961, only two forces existed – the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the Assam Rifles (AR). The CRPF then was only 14 battalion strong; while on january1, 2007 it consisted of 201 battalions with a sanctioned strength of 2.6 laks. The BSF was set up in 1965 by amalgamating twenty-five-and-a-half state armed police forces; but by 2007 it had become 157 battalions strong and its total sanctioned strength had increased to slightly more than 2 laks. Other para-military forces at the centre have seen similar expansion. The total combined strength of the central para military organizations on 1.1.2007 was 7,30,827. They constituted less than 50% of the total strength of the state police forces, which were 16,32,651 strong at the end of the year 2006.
This huge expansion, which is still continuing, has been necessitated by an increasing deployment of central para-military forces on law and order duties. The Central Government has been playing a wide and active role in maintaining law and order in different parts of the country, something that was not envisaged by the Constitution of India for them, except in emergencies. Under the Constitution of India, Police and Public Order are State subjects. Law enforcement is a civil function and it is the responsibility of the state governments to discharge this function effectively through their own police forces.
Most state governments have failed to do so. They have neglected the development of their police forces and have instead depended on the central para-military assistance to meet urgent and emergent law and order needs. This heavy dependence on the central assistance has been the result as well as one of the causes of comparatively poor development of the state police forces. If the need to modernize their police forces and develop them as professional, well equipped, well trained and well led organisations had been recognized by the state governments, they would have performed much better even in dealing with terrorist incidents than they are doing now. The state police forces are in bad shape because there is no political will to make them professionally efficient.
Almost all central para military forces have deviated from the original role assigned to them. The BSF as well as ITBP have no longer remained merely border securing forces, while the SSB has now become one on Indo Nepal border. NSG is being used more on providing security to VIPs than on anti terror activities. All organisations, including CISF, have often been deployed on internal security duties.
Expansion has not merely been rapid but also unplanned, leading to various problems of discipline and morale resulting from poor career planning policies. In every organization, there is considerable stagnation of departmental officers, who were taken from a wide variety of sources, including army, state police forces and directly from the market. The central government has kept most top management posts in these organisations for the IPS, which has created discontent with departmental officers often going to courts.
Fairly sizeable sum of money is being spent on the Police. The state governments spent about Rs 22 thousand crores on their police forces in 2006-07, while the central government spent Rs 11 thousand crores on its seven para military organiations. Thus even if the central expenditure on its other police organisations like IB, CBI, BPR&D, NCRB, NICFS, DCPW and on UT Police Forces is not taken into account, the total expenditure on the Police in the country was more than Rs 33 thousand crores in 2006-07, not a small sum by any means. This is public money. Are the public getting adequate returns on their money? Considering the climate of insecurity and fear that prevails in the country, the answer is a big No.
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