Comment

In a knee-jerk reaction the Government of India has decided, according to newspaper reports, to turn every complaint received by a police station into an FIR.This will mean that the number of investigation officers will have to be increased three or four fold and, correspondingly, the number of policemen who help in the investigation process will also have to be increased. This may not be practically possible within the existing financial resources.

What the government needs to do is to pinpoint the basic reason why an SPS Rathore can get off with his evil deeds. This reason is not far to seek.Almost everyone who knows how the system works knows exactly how the most wicked of officers can openly sin and yet prosper.

There are individuals like Rathore in all spheres of public life. They can be kept in check only by fear of punishment.This fear prevailed even in the police force but times have changed and the politicians who, soon after Independence, were respected and even feared by prospective offenders in the bureaucracy have now become partners in crime.Since the government in power and its party’s supporters have the imbedded authority to appoint, transfer, reward and punish officers, erring officials routinely approach powerful politicians for protection.Each has a godfather or two or even more!

We have seen that in Rathore’s case politicians, cutting across the political divide, were persuaded to protect the offender despite his culpability having been proved by his own seniors and also by the controlling bureaucracy.If then the authority to prosecute the man was squarely in the hands of his departmental superiors, he could not have got off in this shameless fashion.

There are many lessons to be learnt from Rathore’s case. The first is that the power to transfer and promote, to reward or punish, should be removed from the hands of one or two politicians and reposed in a Security Commission, comprising the state home minister, the leader of the Opposition, a retired judge of the high court and a few non-political but respected members of society, who will then take a considered and collective view of the merits or demerits of officials particularly those who dare to cross legal or moral boundaries.

The Supreme Court in the Prakash Singh judgment had endorsed the suggestion of the National Police Commission to constitute such commissions with the specific mandate of ensuring that only the honest and the meritorious are selected for the top job.

The second lesson is that all governments, at the Centre and in the states, should be compelled to exercise the powers reposed in them by the All India Service Rules to compulsorily retire corrupt or incompetent officers at the age of 50 or 55.No government does this at present because of the pressure exerted by officers like Rathore through their political contacts.

Thirdly, no state government should be permitted by law to appoint a DGP who has not been empanelled for that post by the central government.At present the Union government will not accept on deputation officers who are not on their select panels.Why then should the people of the state suffer the corrupt or the incompetent who have not been found fit for deputation to the Centre?Such officials should have been compulsorily retired before they picked up rank.

Fourthly, no officer who has not been decorated with the Indian Police Medal for Meritorious Service should be promoted to the rank of Inspector General of Police and no officer who has not been decorated with a Presidents Police Medal for Distinguished Service should be promoted to the rank of additional DG.

Even if the state governments recommend their cases, the Intelligence Bureau inputs received by the empowered committees should ensure that the corrupt do not find a place in the list of awardees.It stands to reason that such officers should not be imposed on the people of the state. In fact, they should be compulsorily retired at the age of 50 or 55 as mentioned earlier.Rathore could not have been promoted even as additional DG in that case.

It is important for the people to understand that it is the misuse of power by venal politicians that enables corrupt and criminally-inclined officials to rise in the hierarchy and even continue to indulge in wrong doings like the ones that have come to light in Ruchika’s case.If we want justice and decency to prevail we have to strike at the root cause for such malfeasance and force the hands of the political class in the interest of good governance.
It is unfortunate that a young girl has lost her life.But the people have been presented with an opportunity to press for systemic
police reforms.