The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : “Police must handle issues with social responsibility”

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Wednesday, Aug 27, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

“Police must handle issues with social responsibility”

K.T. Sangameswaran

Essential for concepts such as home policing to succeed

Failure to register case will benefit only musclemen
Apex court has called upon police to register FIR immediately

CHENNAI: “The new concept of home policing or police at your doorstep as well as launching of mobile police stations will not serve the purpose unless the police make changes in their very outlook and approach the issues with a sense of social responsibility,” the Madras High Court has observed.

Failure to register a case under one pretext or the other will benefit only musclemen who are ready to deliver quick justice on the basis of hidden dealings where quid pro quo was the basic principle as well as the essential item of contract, it has said.

Disposing of a writ petition filed by a person seeking a direction to authorities to register a case on the murder of his father in November 2004, Justice K.K. Sasidharan said the Supreme Court had time and again called upon the police to register an FIR immediately on receipt of complaint without driving the complainant from pillar to post.

Mr. Justice Sasidharan said under the Cr.P.C. the police had a statutory right to investigate a cognisable offence. The power to investigate the offence was unfettered. It was subject to supervision by superior officers.

In his writ petition, M. Ammasi said his father Munusami, a member of a political party and social activist, was a witness in two murder cases. Munusami had sought police protection as he feared attack by the accused.

The petitioner said on November 11, 2004, he came to know of the murder of his father. Before his arrival, the body was buried.

He preferred a complaint with the State Human Rights Commission, which was forwarded to the Superintendent of Police (SP), Dharmapuri. He sought registration of a case and its transfer to the CB CID for investigation.

In his counter, the Superintendent of Police, Dharmapuri district, said Munusami was in the habit of giving unnecessary trouble by sending false petitions to various authorities against higher officials, including the Collector and the SP.

Munusami died of severe alcohol poisoning. It was not a case of murder.

Mr. Justice Sasidharan said the counter filed by the SP revealed a sorry state of affairs as there were 17 cases of unnatural death reported to Adiyamankottai police station in 2002 alone.

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