Delhi Police caught in the crossfire of opposing camps

The Delhi Police is again in the news. It has been hauled before the Apex Court for its handling of the recent AAP protest demonstration opposite the Rail Bhavan, a stone’s throw from Parliament. It has been asked to explain why it allowed the AAP to paralyze life in parts of the capital despite a prohibitory order being in force. It would be interesting as to what stand the Delhi Police would take.
This is the dilemma that faces police forces the world over: whether they can use force to disperse demonstrators who are intent on breaking the law. Ironically, a policeman can be faulted for two exactly opposite things: a failure to use force and also for the use of excessive force. You cannot fault the Judiciary for intervening in such matters. It is about the only credible institution still remaining in our country. Most of the time it understands the intensity of pressures that operate against policemen in the field. It holds the balance between the legitimate use of force and wanton excesses by the guardians of law. So when the Supreme Court demands why a police force acted or did not act, it is trying to obtain relevant facts before pronouncing its order on the correctness of police response to a disturbance of public peace.
We must remember that the Delhi Police performs a very difficult job. This is why I consider the Delhi Commissioner’s job as the most exacting of assignments for an IPS officer. Barring a few exceptions, the choice of an officer has been rational and based on his track record. A mediocre officer can hardly survive in the job, one that calls for both firmness and tact. There are at least three people who breathe down the neck of a Commissioner: the Union Home Minister, Home Secretary and the Lieutenant Governor. To satisfy all of them without deviating from the law requires special skills. It is against this backdrop that one must view the long-standing demand that the Delhi Police should be brought under the Chief Minister. Following the Nirbhaya rape and murder case, the then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit remonstrated against all criticism saying that she was being unfairly pilloried for an incident which fell within a province that was out of bounds for her. Kejriwal is now making the same demand and has gone to the streets in furtherance of this.
Delhi is not a full-fledged state. When it was created in 1993 the Act passed by Parliament kept the subjects of law and order and land administration outside the purview of the state and entrusted them to the Union Home Ministry (MHA) and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development respectively. Any change in this distribution of authority will require an amendment of the law, a task that is beyond the realm of current political realities. Going by the chaos that the AAP political bigwigs created a few weeks ago, many believe that the present arrangement is sensible and it should continue. This is precisely the rationale behind keeping the Delhi Police out of the reach of a state government which may embarrass the Union government with acts like the one we witnessed outside Rail Bhavan. Also visualise what calamity would have ensued in the midnight raid that the AAP Law Minister conducted in protest against what he and his cohorts believed were the misdeeds of a few members of the African community in Delhi. This could have resulted in an international diplomatic row, one that was averted by the tact displayed by a few junior Delhi Police officers.
The Delhi Police has just about 80,000 men to handle a wide spectrum of tasks, most important of which is dignitary protection. It craves not only for more resources, but far greater understanding of its intricate problems. Judicial forbearance and sympathy will greatly help in the process of establishing high professional standards.
The writer is a former CBI Director