MISUSE OF POLICE

INTERFERENCE WITH AND MISUSE OF POLICE BY ILLEGAL OR IMPROPER ORDERS OR PRESSURE FROM POLITICAL, EXECUTIVE OR OTHER EXTRANEOUS SOURCES—REMEDIAL MEASURES
Introduction15.1 '"Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity........ We end today a period of illfortune and India discovers herself" 'again. The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future ? . . . Freedom and power bring responsibility. That responsibility rests upon this Assembly, a sovereign body representing the sovereign people of India. . . . The service of India means the service of millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over. And so we have to labour and to work hard, to give reality to our dreams. . ."—thus spoke Jawahar Lal Nehru, our first Prime Minister, when he addressed the Constituent Assembly in New Delhi on the eve of Independence on 14th August, 1947. On the conclusion of this Assembly's deliberation, we adopted, enacted and gave to ourselves the Constitution of India embodying all the fundamental concepts and principles of a socialist, secular democracy.
15.2 Looking back over the years that have rolled by since then, one is apt to question and doubt whether we have progressed well on the path of democracy and evolved smooth and successful working arrangements for the purposeful functioning of the three important wings of the democratic system : Legislature, Executive and the Judiciary. The Executive has two layers—the top layer constituted by the elected political leadership in Government and the lower layer covering the career executive, namely, the civil services. While steering the country towards the promised objectives of the socialist welfare State for its hundreds of millions of people, the Government have had to control and regulate in an increasing degreethe conduct and business of different sections of people through progressive legislation and other related measures. This has meant increasing exercise of power by the Government through its widely spread apparatus of the executive in several matters affecting the daily life of the people. National leaders, who were at the helm in different parts of the country in the first decade after Independence, conducted the affairs of the Government with great vision and wise statesmanship and set down patterns of conduct and inter-relationship between the political leadership in Government on the one side and the civil services on, the other. Though not precisely defined, their respective roles were mutually understood fairly well and followed in practice. While the civil services had the benefit of lead and guidance in policy from the political leadership having in view the expectations and aspirations of the public, the political masters had the benefit of professional advice from the civil services regarding the different dimensions of the problems they had to solve. Great leaders and statesmen like Jawahar Lal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Abul' Kalam Azad, Rajagopalachari, Govind Ballabh Pant, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, K. Kamaraj, Roy and Sri Krishna Sinha provided an atmosphere of dignity and sense of direction for the civil services to function honestly and efficiently, with public interests constantly held in view. Passing years saw the entry of a large variety of people into the field of politics and increasing contact between politicians and the executive at various levels in a variety of situations, including those caused by decreasing majorities in legislatures. Scope for exercise of power through the political leadership in Government induced political functionaries outside the Government to take undue interest in the conduct of Government affairs, and gradually the spectre of 'political interference' appeared on the scene. Police, as a part of the civil services, came within the ambit of this interference. In fact the police became specially vulnerable to interference from politicians because of the immense political advantage that could be readily reaped by misuse of police powers. The quality of police performance was and continues to be adversely affected by such interference. During our tours in several States and discussions with different sections of the public as well as services, we heard repeated references to the partisan performance of police owing to frequent interference and pressures from political, executive or other extraneous sources. We propose to deal with this malady in this chapter. '
Pre-Independence Police15.3 Prior to Independence police functioned de jure and de facto as an agency totally subordinate to the executive and ever ready to carry out its commands ruthlessly, even though they may not always have been in genuine 'public interest' as viewed by the public. Though the concept of "rule of law" was introduced by the British regime, law enforcement was subject to the ultimate objective of protecting the British Crown and sustaining the British rule. hi a criminal justice system in which the executive and judicial functions were combined in the same functionaries who constituted the magistracy, accountability to law was covertly subordinated to the executive will. Military strands of the organisation, with their emphasis on discipline and unquestioning obedience, made it easy for the Government to use or misuse the police as they wished.
Post-Independence Police15.4 After long years of tradition of law enforcement subject to executive will under the British rule, the police entered their new role in independent India in 1947. The foreign power was replaced by a political party that came up through the democratic process as laid down in our Constitution. For a time things went well without any notice of any change, because of the corrective influences that were brought to bear on the administrative structure by the enlightened political leadership. However, as years passed by there was a qualitative change in the style of politics. The fervour of the freedom struggle and the concept of sacrifice that it implied faded out quickly, yielding place to new styles and norms of behaviour by politicians to whom politics became a career by itself. Prolonged one-party rule at the Centre and in the States for over 30 years coupled with the natural desire of ruling partymen to remain in positions of power resulted in the development of symbiotic relationship between politicians on one hand and the civil services on the other. Vested interests grew on both sides. What started as a normal interaction between the politicians and the services for the» avowed objective of better administration with better awareness of public feelings sad expectations, soon degenerated into different forms of intercession, intervention and interference with mala fide objectives unconnected with public interest.
15.5 The interaction of the political party in power with the civil services in general and the police in particular has also been considerably influenced by the tactics adopted by some political parties in opposition who believe in establishing their political presence only by continuously keeping up an agitationist posture. The manner in which different political parties have functioned, particularly on the eve of periodic elections, involve the free use of musclemen and Dadas to influence the attitude and conduct of sizeable sections of the electorate. Commenting on the last panchayat elections in Bihar the local correspondent of the "Hindu" reported as below in its issue of August 5, 1978 :—"The Panchayat elections like the other elections in the recent past have demonstrated once again that there can be no sanity in Bihar as long as politics continue to be based on caste and gangsterism. A significant pointer to this was the frank confession in the Assembly the other day by the Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Kapildeo Singh that he patronized and would continue to patronize gangsters and criminals to fight and win elections as long as the existing system of fighting is not changed. Speaking in the Assembly, Shri Singh declared : 'It is well known that each one of us, irrespective of all party affiliations, who is serious about fighting elections, patronizes anti-social elements and enlists their support. It is another matter that we do not admit this.'"The involvement of each people in political activity brings in its wake anti-social elements who exploit then proximity to politicians to gain protection from possible police action under the law. The nexus between unscrupulous elements among politicians and such anti-social element» particularly affect the enforcement of social and economic enactments such as those against prostitution, gambling, smuggling, black-marketing, hoarding, adulteration, prohibition etc. whenever they involve politically influential accused. Arrest and enlargement on bail of persons involved in such offences and their subsequent prosecution in court attract political attention. This also results in some places in a kind of link being established between the elected representatives and the Station House Officer in the day to day affairs of the police station in which the local Dadas frequently get involved. This link facilitates the practice of corruption and other malpractices by the police and politician acting in collusion with each other.
15.6 Consequent on the agitationist posture taken up by some political parties in opposition, protest demonstrations, public meetings, procession», politically motivated strikes in the industrial sector, dharnas, gheraos, etc. have become a recurrent feature of political activity in the country. Police have been increasingly drawn into the resultant law and order situations and arc expected by the ruling party to deal with all such situations with a political eye. Putting down political dissent has become a tacitly accepted objective of the police system.
15.7 The relationship that existed between the police and the foreign power before independence was allowed to continue with the only change that the foreign power was substituted by the political party in power;The basic law—Police Act of 1861—remained practically unaltered and no attempts were made to redefine .the relationship between the police and the politically oriented Government. More and more time of the police was taken up with law and order work which really meant dealing with street situations in a manner that would cause maximum satisfaction to the ruling party. In the process, individual crimes affecting the interests of individual citizens by way of loss of their property or threat to their physical security got progressively neglected. Police got progressively nearer to the political party in power and correspondingly farther from the uncommitted general public of the country. Since most of the law and order situations tended to have political overtones, the political party in power got habituated to taking a direct hand in directing and influencing police action in such situations. This has led to considerable misuse of police machinery at the behest of individuals and groups in political circles. Police performance under the compulsions of such an environment has consequently fallen far short of the requirements of law and impartial performance of duties on several occasions.