POLICE REFORM- THE NEED OF THE HOUR
For police officers in the country,
September 22 is a day to remember. It
was on this day in 2006 that the Supreme Court delivered its long pending
judgment in Prakash Singh’s case. The
judgement directed the state governments to comply with a set of six directives
to kick-start police reform. These
directives included constituting a state security commission in every state to act
as a watchdog over the functioning of the police; prescribing a procedure for
selection of the head of police; giving him and some other police officers a
fixed secure tenure to reduce their vulnerability to outside pressures; setting
up police establishment boards to deal
with transfers, postings and other service-related matters of police officers;
constituting police complaints authorities at the state and district levels to
look into complaints against police officers; and separating investigation from
law and order work.
Most state governments have not shown any
inclination to implement the judgement. Some have given affidavits of
compliance, even though there has been no change at the ground level. Majority
of states have come up with some difficulty or other in implementing the
directions of the Supreme Court. Fifteen states have enacted new Police Acts,
more with a view to legitimising the status quo rather
than complying with the Court’s directions. This is what Justice K.T. Thomas, who was appointed by the court to
monitor the implementation of the judgement, had to say in 2010: “practically
no State has fully complied with those Directives …. in letter and spirit,
despite the lapse of almost four years since the date of the original
judgment.”
The judgement is noteworthy as the apex
court for the first time attempted to insulate the state police forces from the
illegitimate control of political executive; the Havala case judgement of 1998
had tried to do the same, but in case of CBI only. However, like the Havala, this case too
failed to make a significant impact. The
case was filed in 1996; it took the Court ten years to deliver the judgement
and seven years later we remain more or less where we were before the judgement
was delivered.
A history of policing in this country shows that the
police have often worked to serve the interests of the regime in power rather
than to protect the rule of law. There
have been innumerable examples of police not doing their job professionally to
please their political masters.
It is in
this context that the resignation letter of Mr. Vanzara should be seen. Till the other day, Vanzara was a rogue
police officer, but now he is being projected by some politicians as a victim,
who needs sympathy because his ‘God’ failed him in time of need. Even if one accepts what Vanzara has said as
the gospel truth, more than the God, it is the disciple “who could not rise to
the occasion.” Enforcement of orders given by a
senior cannot be invoked to justify any departure from law. National as
well as international instruments prohibit law enforcement officials from doing so. What Vanzara’s letter unwittingly
advocates is the urgent need for police reform in the country.
What has happened recently in Muzafarnagar highlights
the same need. From all accounts received so far, it is obvious that there was an
enormous failure of law enforcement machinery during the recent communal riots
in Muzafarnagar. This is not the first time that such failure
has occurred. A
number of judicial enquiry commissions set up to enquire into communal riots
have commented adversely on the handling of such disturbances by the police.
The National Police Commission referred to the stringent criticism received by
it that the police often did not act impartially and objectively. Considering the fact that the communal
violence has continued to rear its ugly head repeatedly in this country since
Independence, if there is any area of law and order management where the police
should have acquired mastery by now, it is in dealing with communal riots. But this has not happened. Why? It is because the police have been so
badly politicised that their will to act impartially and courageously in
conformity with law has been thoroughly weakened. As the Parliamentary Standing Committee of Home
Affairs in its Eighty Eight Report (April 2002) said: “Today we have a police,
which is politicised and politically polarised.
For it has become a pawn in the hands of its masters. In return, the policemen get political
patronage, which has become essential for their survival.” The worst victim of this system of
politicised policing is the common man, who really wants efficient and reliable
policing but is not being heard. This
also has serious practical implications for such basic issues as democracy,
freedom, rights and dissent.
Thus police reform is the need of the hour, but it is
being fiercely resisted. Non implementation of Supreme Court’s judgement shows
how deep seated and strong has been the resistance to police reforms. It is obvious that insulating the police from
politicisation and criminalisation and accountability of police are at the
heart of reform and in need of urgent and vital attention from the point of
view of addressing public needs and sustaining the constitutional system and rule
of law. But it is exactly this type of reform that the political executive is
not willing to effect. As long as this reform does not occur, officers like
Vanzara will keep on worshiping a false God and Muzaffarnagar will continue to
be repeated elsewhere.
