The Hindu : New Delhi News : Another blot on police image

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Aug 19, 2006

New Delhi

New Delhi

Another blot on police image

The arrest of ACP proves that mechanisms to curb corruption in the force have been ineffective, says Prashant Pandey

The arrest of an Assistant Commissioner of Police last week came as yet another blot on the image of the Capital's police force. It also provided a peek into how corruption flourishes within the system and how the mechanisms to curb the same have proved to be rather ineffective.

To begin with, the ACP had allegedly demanded Rs. 1.5 lakhs from a hotelier to bail out his son who had been arrested in an Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act case. Going by the fact that there are many incidents where a police officer has allegedly extorted money from an accused or a victim and their families by threatening them of penal action, the ACP in question was actually following a "time-tested" method.

Further, the CBI had already raided the ACP in the 1990s in connection with a disproportionate assets case. But he continued to remain in active postings. He had been posted with the Crime Branch at different points in time and was with the same unit when arrested.

For that matter, there have been instances of officers with tainted records posted in elite units like the Special Cell and the Crime Branch. Despite these officers being a major source of embarrassment for these units, the names of such officers keep getting added to the infamous list.

It has to be more than a coincidence for the authorities concerned with transfer and postings to be constantly missing out on the tainted records of these officers.

And if the authorities concerned do weed out such officers and yet they manage to get into the elite units by circumventing their recommendations, then too it should be a matter for concern as it indicates that the tainted officers are becoming a law unto themselves.

Also, there are several cases where tainted officers have been initially sent to the so-called "non-sensitive" postings only to return to "sensitive" or "active postings" (read plum postings). Ultimately, therefore, what happens in the name of prevention of corruption is a merry-go-round of the same lot of tainted officers.

But the point is that shifting of bad apples from one corner of the basket to the other is no insurance for preventing the lot from rotting.

Of course, many such officers are dismissed also. But there have been cases where the officers have managed to get themselves reinstated by appealing to various bodies. In fact, in one particular case, the officer was reinstated because the charge-sheet against him was not filed in time.

There is nothing wrong with providing a forum for appeal to any officer who is being prosecuted. But if the officer is able to manipulate the due legal procedure using his "contacts" or bribes to bail himself out, it is safe to conclude that such a system needs to be overhauled at the earliest.

It is common knowledge that corruption cannot flourish in isolation. It takes a well-oiled network of people from bottom to top to sustain various acts of corruption.

So if corruption is increasing by the day, obviously there is something lacking on the part of those in supervisory roles. Either they may be finding themselves to be a toothless tiger in a system where the command structure is being increasingly circumvented or, probably, those at the helm are themselves abetting corruption.

Therefore, it is high time the authorities stopped paying mere lip service to the corruption-curbing mechanism. The anti-corruption agencies should not stop after arresting an officer when he accepts bribe but should go ahead and break the nexus of the accused completely.

Much like what the police do when they arrest a gangster, because corruption too comes close to organised crime in more ways than one.

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