Police, there for you, always or never?

I HAPPENED to be in the United Kingdom last year for a programme. There was a small news item about the detention, in a police station, of the son of the then and the present British Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair, for being found in a drunken state. There was no phone call and no transfers and postings of the officials who did it. This year in July 2001, Ms. Jenna Bush, daughter of President Bush of the United States, was fined $600 (or approximately Rs. 30,000) and her driving licence was suspended for 30 days on charges of underage drinking and trying to use someone else's identification to buy liquor. Ms. Bush has been ordered $100 in court fee, perform 36 hours of community service and attend a session, where victims of alcohol related crimes discuss their experience. If she completes the requirements and stays out of trouble for three months, the charge will be dismissed. Unlike the Indian politicians or criminals, Ms. Jenna Bush pleaded no contest. The underage drinking will be considered a conviction and will go on her record.

The former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Mr. Karunanidhi, was arrested by the police in an early morning swoop on charges of corruption and later on, the charges were dropped. Two Central Ministers were arrested for obstructing and preventing the police officials from discharging their duties and were later released. The Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr. Digvijay Singh, has said that he would not hesitate to arrest Central Ministers if they break the law. "Whether the person concerned is a Union Minister or anybody else, the law should take its course". Very brave words and indeed commendable in their own way.

But let us see, what is the ground reality in our country. The British themselves, who had fathered the Indian Police, set up a commission in 1902/1903, which after examining witnesses and the performance of the police observed: "There can be no doubt that the police force throughout the country is in a most unsatisfactory condition, that abuses are common everywhere, that this involves great injury to the people and discredit to the government, and that radical reforms are urgently necessary. These efforts will cost much, because the department has hitherto been starved, but they must be effected."

The British were not really interested in reforming the police, as it was their main instrument of sustaining the British Raj in India. Nothing much has been done from the time of the Police Commission of 1902-03 till almost now. The First National Police Commission of Free India (1977-1981), under late Dharam Vira observed: "Functioning under the constraints and handicaps of an outmoded system, the police performance has undoubtedly fallen short of public expectation. The present culture of the police system appears a continuation of what obtained under the British regime, when the police functioned ruthlessly as an agent for sustaining the government in power. In public estimates, the police appear as an agency more to implement and enforce the objectives of the government in power, as distinct from enforcing laws as such as an independent and impartial agency. The dividing line between the objectives of the government in power as such on one side, and the interests and expectations of the ruling political party on the other side, gets blurred in actual practice, and the image of the police, as an impartial law enforcement agency, suffers in consequence."

Genuine apprehensions

The policemen have genuine apprehensions that if they do not yield to the political dictates, they will face adverse consequences for doing even the right things, which may not be to the liking of the political masters. This affects the performance of duties, on the right lines, by the police. The people have their own grievances against the police. These grievances, which are as under, have a ring of truth about them.

(1) The people believe that police indulge in favouritism. The enforcement of laws by the police is selective, anti-poor and pro-rich. The police function only when the cases involve influential or powerful people.

(2) The police are generally discourteous, even to respectable persons. They also use abusive language. Even the aggrieved and complainants are not spared. The result of this perception is that even honest citizens avoid doing anything to help the law enforcement agencies. They feel that it is best to avoid the police and keep them at two arms length, even for redress of their genuine grievances.

(3) The people also feel that the complaints of the poor and uninfluential are ignored by the police. They also feel that the redress of any grievances of the common man by the police is only an illusion, notwithstanding the claims of the senior officers or the public relations exercises done.

(4) The police officials themselves do not comply with the laws. It can be seen everyday in the violation of traffic laws by the police officials who openly demand and accept bribes on the roadside at many places, especially in the enforcement of social, local and special laws pertaining to traffic, hawkers, prostitutes and other weak groups. Policemen are the biggest violators of laws. It is they who bring all talk of fair law enforcement into ridicule. The police also make out false cases against the public, indulge in illegal methods, like the use of the third degree, beating, torturing, wrongful confinement, and detention of the people, who may have nothing to do with any crime. All this is done in the name of law enforcement, but actually to extort money, as part of their universal corruption. The police do not act speedily even in genuine cases, unless an influential person is involved. The rich can purchase the police inaction to suit their requirements.

Political intervention

It is true that police should be accountable for their actions. A constitutional system of government, based on democratic principles, cannot function without an effective, efficient and accountable police. Constitutionally, the Home or Police Minister has been made accountable for the performance of the police. Unlike the other executive wings of the government, the police have maximum visibility. Visibility takes away anonymity. The accountability of the police means answerability for the proper performance of their duties to the satisfaction of the party, for whose benefit its duties are being discharged. Constitutionally, the police are accountable to the elected representatives of the people in State legislatures and Parliament in case of the Union Territories. The concept of ministerial responsibility has given an impression to the political masters that they are authorised to guide and intervene in all functions of the police in all areas. Most often, all intervention takes the form of only oral directions, which are difficult to prove later on in a court of inquiry or in case the politicians set up commissions of inquiry to look into the conduct of the police. It happened with the author, when the then Prime Minister wanted to bail out a Chief Minister who was clearly involved in a scam, being investigated by the CBI.

Professor David H. Balyey says: "In India today, a dual system of criminal justice has grown up, the one of the law and the other of politics. With respect at least to the police, decisions made by the police officials, about the application of law, are frequently subject to partisan review or direction by the elected representatives. The autonomy of the police officials, in specific and routine application of law, has been severally curtailed. This is not only true of law and order situations. People accused of crimes have got into the habit of appealing to political figures for remission from the law. Police officials, throughout India, have grown accustomed to calculating the likely political effect of any enforcement action they contemplate. Fearing for their careers and especially their postings, they have become anxious and cynical. But everywhere, officers are expected to be held personally accountable by the politicians, even more than by their superior officers for enforcement action taken in the course of duty. Altogether, then the rule of law in modern India, the frame upon which justice hinges, has been undermined by the rules of politics. Supervision in the name of democracy has eroded the foundations upon which the impartiality depends in a criminal justice system." The above observations clearly indicate that the police are being used by the political masters, irrespective of the parties in power, for their gains and ends. It aptly explains away the arrest of the opposition leaders by the ruling parties and that is how the game of see-saw goes on.

For settling political scores

Employing the police to settle political scores by any ruling political party is a nothing but subverting the rule of law. Examples of settling scores by using police abound. The earliest known prominent case in this category was the arrest of late Indira Gandhi by the Janata Government in 1977 and the latest being the arrest of the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Mr. Karunanidhi, on June 30, 2001. The government has to make up its mind for insulating the police from the politics and the politicians of the country. This is the only correct way of deploying the police, for duties for which law has created it.

In the present arrangement and environment, the policemen have genuine apprehensions, that if they do not yield to the political dictates, and do their biddings, there will be personal adverse consequences. Such consequences arise even for doing the right things. It is not necessary that any action should be something right and in accordance with the law. Now the acid test is that it should be to the liking of the political masters. This expectation and apprehension affects the performance of duties by the police officials.

A study conducted by the Indian Institute of Public Opinion, at the instance of the Home Ministry regarding "The Image of the Police in India", showed the following conclusions:

1. Political interference is seen by the public as a major factor contributing to the poor image of the police and manifests itself in the misuse and abuse of police powers and disregard of the law by the police.

2. People consider political interference with police as a greater evil than even corruption.

3. Political interference appears more pronounced in rural areas than in urban areas.

Typical situations

Some typical situations or matters in which pressure is brought to bear on the police by political executive or other extraneous sources are listed below:

1. Arrest or non-arrest of a person against whom a case is taken up for investigating.

2. Deliberate handcuffing of a person in police custody merely to humiliate him.

3. Release or non-release on bail after arrest.

4. Suppression of material evidence that becomes available during searches by the police.

5. Inclusion or non-inclusion in the chargesheet placed in the court on conclusion of investigation.

6. Posting or non-posting of police force in an area of apprehended trouble to create an effect to the advantage of one party or the other.

7. Foisting of false criminal cases against political functionaries for achieving political ends.

8. Discretionary enforcement of laws, while dealing with public order situations, with emphasis on severity and ruthlessness in regard to persons opposed to the ruling party.

9. Taking persons into preventive custody to immobilise them from legitimate political activity in opposition to the party in power.

10. Manoeuvring police intervention by exaggerating a non- cognisable offence, or engineering a false complaint, to gain advantage over any other party in a situation, which will lie outside the domain of police action in the normal course.

11. Preparation of malicious and tendentious intelligence reports to facilitate action against an opponent.

Transfers or suspensions are used as weapons to make the officials toe the line of the political masters. Almost all political parties have used these weapons. Some have done it with finesse, and some crudely. Most of the time, the first casualty on the assumption of a new government in a State is the chief of police and the Chief Secretary. They are shifted to make room for more pliable officials. Pressure on the police takes a variety of shapes and forms, ranging from a promise of career advancement and preferential treatment in service matters if the demand is yielded to. Adverse treatment in service matters is threatened if the pressure is resisted. It is not always possible to punish an officer with a statutory punishment under the Discipline and Appeal Rules. Adequate grounds and a prescribed procedure are required to be followed. However, it is a very easy to subject any police official to an administrative action, by way of transfer or suspension on the basis of any excuse. The suspension acts as a humiliating factor. A transfer can be an economic blow. It can also lead to the disruption of the police officer's family, and children's education, etc.

Transfer and suspension are the most potent weapons in the hands of the politician to make the police do his implied or specifically expressed or expected will. Transfer has become an industry and nobody is bothered whether the same is justified or not on normal administrative grounds. This has resulted in a curious situation, where some obliging subordinate officials have developed such a clout with the political leadership that their seniors pamper them and depend on them to stay in their jobs. Some of them have such a high influence with the political leadership that if any senior official tries to rein in them, they get him the boot and transfer. The politically directed, ad- hoc and arbitrary transfers, sometimes due to the failure of the police officials to keep the local politicians happy, have become the norm these days. This approach has seriously affected the discipline, morale, chain of command, and strict adherence to the laws of the land. In one case, one Sub-Inspector of Police has 119 transfers in 29 years of his service. The interests of real professional service to the public have been sacrificed at the altar of political expediency and appeasement.

Source of pressure

The source of pressure emanates not only from political functionaries in government but also from outside the government who are not connected in any manner with different political parties including the ruling party. Such people operate through links of money, caste, community, regional affinity, etc. Sometime back in the police recruitment in some States, only persons belonging to the community or caste of the serving Chief Minister were inducted.

Interference with any police system by the politicians encourages some police personnel to believe that their career advancement does not depend on the merits of their professional competence, but on the favours of the politicians who count. Politicking and hobnobbing appears more worthwhile in the estimation of an average police officer. Some police officers spend all the time in deliberate and sustained cultivation of politicians to the detriment of their normal professional jobs.

Subordinate officers know, see and realise that their superior officers count little in the ultimate disposal of a matter which lies in sphere of duty and this leads to atrophying of the supervisory structure. In this connection the Home Ministry in the past had submitted a note to the Conference of the Chief Ministers and Home Ministers convened by the then Union Home Minister; it said "There is a feeling in all States that interference not only in the matter of posting and transfers, but also in the matter of arrests, investigations and filing of chargesheets is widespread. The principal grievance of the policeman is that if there is any unwillingness to comply with unlawful or improper suggestions, the persons concerned are harassed or humiliated."

The note observed that the Government of India would like to impress upon the Chief Ministers that efforts should be made "to ensure that there is no unlawful interference in the exercise of statutory powers. Secondly, in the matters of posting and transfers, States should seek to restore leadership and effectiveness of the official hierarchy, with a view to ensure that the requisite rapport between the officers and men is not eroded." At the end of the deliberations of this conference, the participants agreed that the "problem arising out of interference will bear effective solutions at the political level." But unfortunately even decades after the discussion, the position has not only remained unaltered but has gone from bad to worse.

What is required is a crusade for moral regeneration to bring about a change, which is the need of the hour. The present government should not shirk from its historic responsibility. It is claimed to be a government of a party with a difference. Let it prove that it is different. This is the least it owes to the present and the future generations.

JOGINDER SINGH

Former CBI Director

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