Police Reform Is Above Politics
By Ajay K. Mehra
12 January, 2007
Countercurrents.orgEven as the UP government and police duck for cover over their inept and insensitive handling of the Noida outrage, Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil’s meeting with chief ministers and state home ministers on January 2 ended on a discordant note. The CMs, including those credited with good governance, accused the UPA-led government of ‘playing politics’ and circumventing India’s federal spirit by violating List II (state list) in the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution.
Sadly, even the best of them have never given police reform the remotest thought. Yet the Noida incidents point to the breakdown of policing at each level, and the complete erosion of the police as the basic institution for internal security. The police across the country has been known to avoid registering cases in order to keep the crime rate and their workload low. It is the poor who invariably bear the brunt of their inefficiency and corruption. Starkly, a recent high profile kidnapping in Noida’s posh Sector 15A witnessed unprecedented police mobilisation, while the disappearance of several children over the past two years in Nithari met with police apathy.
The pervasiveness of dereliction of basic duty by the police has recently been revealed during the trials of Priyadarshini Mattoo and Jessica Lall cases. The police were found deficient in taking cognisance of and investigating the case. The cases of recorded custodial crime (death as well as rape) have risen by 50 per cent in the country between 2004 and 2005. The Telgi case has cast its shadow even over the haloed chair of the Mumbai police commissioner. Officers of IG rank are facing trial for heinous crimes like murder. Obviously, the deep rot necessitates comprehensive reforms at every level — although the delivery level deserves the most urgent attention.
Several aspects of police administration have been discussed since the 1960s, when the discourse on police reform began within the framework of the 1861 Police Act. Without meddling with the state realm, the Centre reviewed administrative structures and training in the 1960s and 1970s. The Dharam Vira-headed National Police Commissions (NPC) in 1977 came after three decades of inaction to reform this vital institution of governance. In fact, despite its report being jettisoned, the Commissions have provided a fillip to the quest for police reforms amid strong political and bureaucratic resistance.
The resistance of some of the CMs on federal grounds is constitutionally and politically untenable. The state initiatives for police reforms in the 1960s and 1970s remained fruitless or mechanical exercises despite some of the State Police Commissions giving useful recommendations. Moreover, the NPC as well as all the post-1998 initiatives were taken by non-Congress governments, and most of the leaders and parties objecting to the UPA initiative have been part of it. Obviously, they all need to put police reforms above their political compulsions and come to a national political consensus on the nature of police reforms. For, ‘reform’ aims at removal of imperfections and is a continuous process, which can be achieved only when the objectives are clearly defined.
A careful look at the Constitution suggests that entries 1 and 2 of List II read with Entry 2A of List I (Union List) in the Seventh Schedule do not preclude the role of the Union government in internal security, of which the police is just an instrument. Entry 2A was inserted by the controversial 42nd Amendment by Indira Gandhi during the Emergency, but it was not undone by the 44th Amendment authored by the Janata government. Indeed, the argument that the Centre must not interfere with day-to-day maintenance of law and order is unexceptionable. But the need for a new Police Act and for a new role for the police in the larger criminal justice system demands that the Union government assume a leadership role. This must be accepted by all the states regardless of political divides.
The strategy of the state governments and political parties should therefore be one of circumspection. Their contestation with the Centre should be positively directed — on objectives and details rather than on its leadership role. The Supreme Court directive has several shortcomings in terms of administrative principles, which deserve to be countered through persuasive argument and a detailed plan of action.
The writer is director, Centre for Public Affairs, Noida
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