dna edit: A force with little power

The Supreme Court has endorsed and reiterated what was already there in the Indian Penal Code: that the police are bound to lodge a First Information Report in case of a cognisable offence. The filing of the report is aimed at ensuring that the police investigate the case thoroughly because they are answerable to the court where the case will be tried. This procedure, if followed sincerely, should have made the force accountable to the public and enabled it to get its act together. The ground realities, of course, are different.

What the country has witnessed over the years is a serious loss of confidence and mounting distrust of ordinary citizens while dealing with the very people who are entrusted with their safety and security. A dispirited force, sunk deep in corruption, is often found to be arrogant and unsympathetic to the plight of citizens. There are countless instances across the country in local police stations where officers-in-charge have refused to register FIRs and turned away victims because an FIR makes it obligatory to probe allegations and bring offenders to justice.

Though it is natural to blame the police for the rise in crimes, it needs to be borne in mind that the men-in-uniform too are victims of the system they are supposed to fight. Most state police forces suffer from lack of manpower. In Maharashtra, for instance, there is only one policeman for about 450 citizens. To maintain law-and-order in the metropolitan city of Mumbai with 13 crore population, the force can afford only one policeman for 267 people. In Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai the police-public ratio stands at 1: 200, 1: 222 and 1:413, respectively. This means a lot of hard work  for every policeman  — especially in the lower rungs — who has very little respite from a taxing job, and very little incentive, in terms of salary.

The other impediments to effective policing come from political and bureaucratic interferences. The resistance of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, to implement the seven-year-old Supreme Court seven-point directive on police reforms in the 2006 Prakash Singh case is in essence a reluctance of the political establishment to give up its stranglehold over the police.

These state governments consider the SC’s directives an encroachment on the executive’s function. It must be pointed out that Maharashtra’s home minister RR Patil has been accused of orchestrating police transfers, thus rendering the top brass of the force ineffective. If a chunk of the force is employed in VIP duties, mostly to cater to politicians, who will also decide their postings and transfers, it is only natural for the police to be more loyal to netas than the people they are supposed to serve.

FIRs alone cannot bring about a radical transformation in the force, though it is a significant step towards better policing. Every police station should be equipped with CCTV cameras to ensure that FIRs are registered properly, and regardless of the aggrieved’s social or financial status, his/her complaint is looked into and suitable action is taken.

After all, it is the tax payer’s hard-earned money, not the generosity of politicians, that goes into paying the salaries of policemen.