Despite several laws and Supreme Court directives on how the police must conduct investigations and what the rights of citizens are, human rights abuses, corruption and misconduct persist in the Indian police force, says Navaz Kotwal

Recently, the issue of police reforms was stirred yet again by the killing of Delhi’s ‘encounter specialist’ ACP Rajbir Singh - the only Delhi Police officer with Z-plus security, who had 56 ‘encounters’ to his credit. The most controversial of these extra-judicial killings was the ‘encounter’ in the basement of Ansal Plaza in South Delhi. Singh was also the cop who investigated the famous Parliament Attack case. Then, in 2005, he was caught in a corruption case after the Narcotics Bureau recorded conversations between him and a drug peddler about a land deal. He was involved in some other property disputes as well. He was removed from the Crime Branch, but was mysteriously reinstated within a short while, with no explanations.

Since he was a ‘high-profile cop’, news of his killing was carried by all the news channels. There were interviews with top cops and lawyers on the need for police reform. Everyone vehemently agreed and argued that reform was the need of the hour, that the police must not be subject to political direction, that there must be transparency in its functioning, that there must be accountability, and that if all of this does not happen now, the system will soon collapse.

A year or so ago, the Vanzara case had made the headlines. D G Vanzara was the IGP responsible for the alleged fake encounter killing of Sohrabbuddin Sheikh and the subsequent killing of his wife Kauserbi. Then, too, there was much talk about police reform in newspaper articles, on TV channels, Supreme Court intervention, calls for an independent investigation etc. As at other times before and since, all the talk soon died down.

For the truth is that no one is really interested in police reform.

On September 22, 2006, the Supreme Court delivered a historic judgment in Prakash Singh and Others vs Union of India and Others which was viewed by many as a concrete step in the direction of police reform. The court took the decisive step of instructing central and state governments to comply with a set of seven directives (see box) that laid down the practical mechanisms to kick-start reform. The states have yet to comply. At the last hearing of the contempt petition filed by Prakash Singh, on March 13, 2008, over 20 states failed to file compliance reports with the court in advance of the hearing. The case has now been adjourned to April 24, 2008, when the court will hear submissions regarding the possible creation of a monitoring committee.

The need for reform

No one who has had any dealings with the police can be in any doubt that reforms, starting at the most basic level, are badly required. In my few years of work I’ve had a number of experiences with the police that I could describe as “the never good, the bad and the ugly”. Each time I have had to remind them that the court has laid down the strictest guidelines about making arrests, about deaths in custody, about how lock-ups must be kept.

Lock-ups are always overcrowded. A dozen people are shoved into a ten by ten space with no light and no separate toilet. Last time I visited, the wretched inmates stretched out their arms to grasp at any passing stranger and ask for food. I asked them if they had been produced before a magistrate. It meant nothing to them. I asked if they knew what they were arrested for. They had no clue. I asked if their families had been informed. They only answered, “Didi, please, kuch khana do na”. I complained to the station house officer. It was a waste of time. I’ve been back and it’s all the same as before.

In the famous D K Basu judgment in 1997, the Supreme Court laid down a set of 11 guidelines for the police to follow when making an arrest. These were nothing new as they had existed for long in constitutional and statutory provisions, but had been forgotten in the wake of frequent violations. So the court served a reminder. It even said that these guidelines must be put up in every police station.

I have walked into many police stations but have never seen such a board. A police officer I recently asked said nonchalantly that he’d heard of them but didn’t think much about it. Even if he managed to get a copy of the guidelines, it would be in English. Was he then expected to translate these into the local language, he asked.

Flouting the law with impunity

A police station should be a place of protection but instead it feels extremely unsafe and unwelcoming, a place most people want to avoid. Beating, torture and illegal arrests are common, so common that complaints about them are few.

My first visit to a police station was typical. The place was shabby, thick with the stink of urine and beedis. Several policemen were sitting around, some with their feet on the tables, some sipping tea, others smoking under a ‘no smoking’ sign, and some asleep in an inner room. Most of them were unshaven and sloppily dressed. Along the filthy walls people sat on benches or squatted on the floor. Some said they had been called in for questioning, others were waiting to register a complaint. Policemen always complain that they are overworked and underpaid, but during the several visits I have paid to police stations, I have never got the sense that the cops were overworked.

I walked up to the officer and said I wanted to register a complaint. He told me to wait, Saheb was busy. Two hours later Saheb was still busy. Come back tomorrow, I was told. I tried to explain the urgency of the matter, and to explain the incident. It didn’t matter. I told them the law -- they had to register my complaint. Still nothing. I lost it and shouted. They threw me out of the station.

As time passed, I learnt with experience that there were ways of ‘managing’ the situation. I learnt that for Rs 25 the police tell you how honest they are. I also learnt that for Rs 250 you can get home delivery of a chargesheet. I learnt that the posts of station house officer are auctioned to the highest bidder. I learnt that cops give up promotions but not the posting. No one can prove it they said, but it’s an open secret that each police station and police action has its price and there are valuable earnings to be had out of a ‘goldmine’ posting.

The Supreme Court has said, again and again, that torture is forbidden under any circumstances. Our laws make it plain. Still, I once had a man come over to my home very early in the morning. His brothers had been picked up by the police, illegally detained and tortured for over seven days. When I saw the boys they could barely speak. Each had a fractured hand or a broken leg, and had received electric shocks.

Registering a First Information Report (FIR) is an obligation under the law, illegal detention is impermissible, there are clear guidelines for investigation – it’s all there. But in the above case, it took two weeks to get an FIR registered. It took a dozen letters and numerous phone calls to heads of police to begin the investigation. It took a month to suspend the erring officer and get him arrested. So, while courts continue to say that torture in custody flouts the basic rights of citizens and is an affront to human dignity, throughout the country torture remains an inherent part of everyday policing.

Lack of political will

In the course of my work I have been around a lot of police people and they make all sorts of excuses for corruption and cruelty. They moan about their working conditions, their short staffing, their long hours, their low wages, their poor leadership and having to obey ‘orders from above’. You have to wonder what it is that keeps them in the police force if they are so demoralised. But the system is such that it seems to grind down the bravest and the best.

So, yes, police reform is the need of the hour. But it only sparks debate when high-profile cases come to the fore or high-profile personalities get caught. When governments give affidavits of compliance in court, they have to follow it up on the ground and stop the biased policing, the shoddy investigations, the corruption and beatings in police stations. Otherwise, the affidavits are just so much paper.

If laws are not going to be followed, let’s just throw them out. But if the rule of law is to be obeyed, then it is with the police that the process must start. More laws and more directives will change nothing till every officer is held to account for wrongdoing. There are too many people trapped in a dysfunctional system and it’s for them we must keep trying.

(Navaz Kotwal is Programme Co-ordinator, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), New Delhi)

InfoChange News & Features, April 2008

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