The Hindu : National : `Implement police reforms'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Dec 13, 2004

National

National

`Implement police reforms'

By Our Staff Correspondent

CHANDIGARH, DEC 12. A galaxy of luminaries from academics, politics, judiciary, bureaucracy and media has stressed the need for immediate implementation of the police reforms to transform the functioning of personnel at various levels, in relation with the community. The new role should be in consonance with the societal needs in the changing global order.

The point of view became the core for a consensus at the beginning of the two day workshop, "Police and Community Interface: Problematics and Remedies'' organised by the Institute for Development and Communication (IDC), with the help of the Punjab unit of the IPS Association and the Delhi based Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.

Inaugurating the event Union Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pension and Parliamentary Affairs, Suresh Pachouri, stressed the need for the police to work in partnership with the people and make institutions like the police station as the hub of social change, upholders of human rights and basic democratic values.

Mr. Pachouri quoted Mahatma Gandhi to stress that the police should function as a reformer and give up its colonial legacy of suppressing the people. He emphasized the need to review and amend the Police Act, 1861, Indian Evidence Act, Criminal Procedure Code (Cr.P.C.) in a manner where the police should become more accountable to society rather than to ruling political party.

In a separate session former BJP pesident, M. Venkiah Naidu, said that criminal judicial system in India was not working in vacuum. He said that there were many actors and factors, which played important role in providing as well as denying justice to the common man.

While arguing against any complete insulation from interference from the political executive, Mr. Naidu opposed recommendations of reform panel favouring at statement before investigating officer should be made permissible as evidence. He advocated more democraticisation of various parts of the system, introducing accountability of the judicial system, performance and evaluation of the officers and fixing tenure of the police officials and selection of public prosecutor through the Union Public Service Commission.

Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court, V.K. Gupta, sought an attempt at making the overall delivery system more sensitive to the needs of the people. He said there was major paradox that while the police and the judiciary had failed on various accounts, the people had no other option to seek a remedy. He claimed that the judiciary enjoyed a better image than the police because of its independence from external interferences while delivering justice. However, he accepted that prolonged pendency of cases led to apathy among the people.

Member of the UPSC, Gurbachan Jagat, who formerly headed the BSF and the Jammu and Kashmir Police, detailed about the challenges before the police, democracy, control mechanism and the accountability of policemen to the statute. He was of the view that the Malimath and Dharamvira Committee's recommendations regarding police reforms be accepted and advised officers to avoid chasing plum postings, which would help shed the image as well as the attitude of being the ruling class.

Introducing the theme of the workshop, Director of IDC, Pramod Kumar, said that policing had to face the challenges posed by globalisation of rights and crimes, technological revolution, active generations, plural community and human mobility and diaspora. He also emphasized that in the new era, aim of policing had to shift from an enforcement perspective targeting community as potential criminals to crime prevention with community participation.

A book written by the Punjab Police chief, A.A. Siddiqui, "Police sub culture'', which has been published by the Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU) was also released on the occasion. Speaking on the occasion, Principal of the Punjab Police Academy (PPA), G.S. Aujla, while pointing ambivalence between the formal and informal quest for accountability, said that the police functioned in a democratic set up with colonial rules.

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