Sample the following. Way back in 1902, the Indian Police Commission that was set up by the British to review the working of the police in India concluded that India’s police force was in the “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”. This happened to be the first time that a responsible body talked of police reforms. Nearly 110 years later, reforms or even a genuine intent at reform, are nowhere in sight. For the past 35 years or so there have been repeated calls by various commissions and committees set up by the government to suggest the way ahead for police reforms. If you find the irony too obvious, we are only getting started.
In 1977, the government at the Centre appointed a National Police Commission (NPC), recognising the fact that far reaching changes had taken place in the country since Independence and that there had been “no comprehensive review at the national level of the police system after Independence despite radical changes in the political, social and economic situation in the country”. It was then felt that “a fresh examination is necessary of the role and performance of the police both as a law enforcement agency and as an institution to protect rights of the citizens enshrined in the Constitution”. The NPC, more commonly known as the Dharamvira Commission, submitted eight detailed reports between 1979 and 1981 with several recommendations covering the entire gamut of police working.
Right since its first report, it has rendered some far-reaching suggestions, which if implemented, could have changed the face of the police establishment in India. In the first report, the NPC recommended that the existing system of working of constables, who constitute more than 85 per cent of the force, be radically changed. The second report stressed upon the basic role of the police which is to function as a law enforcement agency and render impartial service to the people. It also expressed concern on the misuse of police, interference by illegal or improper orders or pressure from political executives or other extraneous sources. To ensure this, it also recommended the setting up of a statutory body called the State Security Commission in each state and also that the chief of police should be assured of a minimum prescribed tenure. It also recommended measures to improve the police handling and investigation of cases of communal riots and internal management of the police force. These recommendations not only covered everything that is wrong with the police force today, they also gave ready solutions that just needed to be picked up and implemented.
That was not to be. “The political leadership was just not prepared to give functional autonomy to the police because it had found this wing of the administration a convenient tool to further its partisan objectives. As for the bureaucracy, control over the police was – and continues to be – an intoxicant they have become addicted to and are just not willing to give that up,” former police chief of of UP and Assam and former Director General of the Border Security Force Prakash Singh told TSI. Singh was part of a petition filed in the Supreme Court that led to a landmark order on September 22, 2006, where the apex court ordered the setting up of institutions at the state level with a view to insulating the police from extraneous influences, giving it functional autonomy and ensuring its accountability. Shockingly, even the highest judicial intervention failed to move governments’ unwillingness to go ahead with the suggested reforms. Today, even after six years of the SC order, its mandate remains largely unfulfilled.
Twelve states (Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tripura and Uttrakhand) have drafted laws with a view to circumventing the implementation of Supreme Court’s directions. Others have complied but fell short of implementing. Apart from the NPC, several other bodies were constituted from time to time to delve into the question of police reforms. These included the Gore Committee on Police Training (1971-73), the Ribeiro Committee on Police Reforms (1998), Padmanabhaiah Committee on Police Reforms (2000), Group of Ministers on National Security (2000-01) and Malimath Committee on Reforms of Criminal Justice System (2001-03). It is this defiance that has translated into the shambles that the country’s police establishment is in today. “Corruption starts from top. It does not start from a constable. Senior officers work with impunity. Rules of law are separate for different people,” says internal security expert Ajay Sahni who does not believe that police reforms would bring any change to the operational character and efficiency. “The number of policemen per 100,000 people in India is 134. The minimum United Nations norm is 220. At 220, we are approximately 600,000 policemen short. It is no man’s guess how well cases can be investigated in the present scenario. Even the present incidents of rape would have been brushed under the carpet had there not been so much of outcry,” Sahni points out.
The more things seem to change, the more they remain stubbornly the same. Ask the immortal soul of Justice J.S Verma who submitted the latest report on police reforms.
