The Hindu : Kerala News : Police university sought

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 21, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Kerala

Kerala

Police university sought

Special Correspondent

It will create an elite professional police force: judge

For reforms: High Court judge R. Basant inaugurating a workshop on police reforms in Thalassery on Sunday.

THALASSERY: High Court judge R. Basant has called for establishing a police university or a similar institution for creating an elite professional police force and introducing substantial changes to attune the force to the democratic system.

Inaugurating a workshop on ‘people’s campaigning for better policing in Kerala’ organised here by the Kannur-based Mass Initiative for Non-violence and Democracy and the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) on Sunday, Justice Basant said that separation of criminal investigation from law and order envisaged in the directives of the Supreme Court for reforming the police was key to professionalising the force.

“Criminal investigation being a professional task, the earlier you separate it from law and order, the better for the system,” he said lamenting that the police today had no professionalism.

For the police force to attract the best and the talented, the idea of setting up a university or a professional academy had to be considered, he said adding that the universities and school boards should start thinking of policing as a professional activity.

Observing that society seemed to think that everything could be left to political establishment or courts, Justice Basant said that law, justice and governance were too serious a business to be left wholly to the judiciary and the government alone.

The civil society should act to ensure the country’s experiment in democracy continued.

The retired Director-General of Police P.J. Alexander said that the draft of the newly proposed Kerala Police Act 2008 was nothing but a document that was null and void as it was against the Supreme Court’s directives for reforming the police in the Prakash Singh case.

“Nobody in the State has any desire to reform the police and those who come to power want the existing condition to continue,” he said.

Madhu Menon, chief editor of Sudinam daily, presided over the function. MLAs K.C. Joseph and Ramachandran Kadannappally, District Court Bar Association president T. Asafali and All India Lawyers’ Union State secretary E.K. Narayanan were among those spoke at the workshop.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Kerala