July 2009 
Year 15    No.142
Comment


Excessive forces

Draconian laws and professional policing

BY RB SREEKUMAR

The politicisation of enactments often overshadows any serious discussion on the desirability of a law, its potentiality, ambit of provisions and overall impact on society. Debate on the central government’s suggestions to tone down the stringency of the Gujarat Control of Organised Crime (GCOC) Bill proposed by the Gujarat government is the latest instance of the usual drama.

Jurists, criminologists, human rights activists and public-spirited apolitical citizens should opine on the necessity, applicability and scope for misuse of the proposed law instead of political leaders indulging in mud-slinging on peripheral issues. Can the menace of terrorism and covertly prepared and executed attacks in the form of bomb blasts, assassinations, disruption of public life and so on be prevented by giving the police unlimited powers? The answer is a big no because our law enforcement agencies, whether local police or special task units or paramilitary forces, have not so far demonstrated the necessary maturity or concern for the letter and spirit of the fundamental rights, a highly laudable and enforceable component of the Indian Constitution.

In practice, there have been no instances of self-correction and reform by our policing institutions. In none of the cases of human rights violations pertaining to the communal riots of 1984 (Delhi) or 2002 (Gujarat) and numerous encounter killings has the police hierarchy suo motu exposed the deviant functionaries and penalised them. On the contrary, top police officers have always shielded the wrongdoers, even convincing politicians to comply, harping on the slogan of police morale. Invariably, culpability is reluctantly accepted only when there is judicial intervention as in the case of the Bhagalpur blindings, the encounter killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh in Gujarat and deaths in police custody.

Any move to reveal the truth that would adversely affect those rash and pseudo-adventurist police officers who commit excesses, mostly to please their political masters and thereby further their own careers, is looked upon as a sin and an assault on police interests. That whistle-blower, a rare species indeed, would be ostracised by his colleagues. What’s more, the establishment would undoubtedly resort to unholy means to ‘discipline’ him.

In this reality, making confessions before a police officer (however senior he may be) admissible as evidence would be fatally injurious to the rule of law and human rights. Political leaders who have been clamouring for such arbitrary police powers could well fall victim to such powers in a changed situation.

Secondly, the convenience of making an accused person’s confession admissible would prompt the police to take the line of least resistance and avoid painstaking investigation through the collection of scientific evidence, construction of the chain of circumstances surrounding a crime and uncovering the entire network of criminals and the ramifications of their crimes. In short, the admissibility of confessions would undermine police professionalism and weaken the pursuit of skilful investigation.

Terrorists and extremists are a minority in society, fuelled by the courage of their convictions and a missionary zeal to achieve their goal by hook or by crook. Public pressure for swift detection and arrest of culprits in a terrorist crime often tempts policemen to book suspects without sufficient convincing evidence. Backed by the evidentiary efficacy of confessions, the police would likely be driven to book sympathisers or affiliates of the terrorist outfits presumably responsible for a crime or those persons in an organisation who, as a tactic, claim responsibility for the terrorist act. This suicidal move would facilitate the escape of the real planners, organisers, mobilisers and executors of the crime from the clutches of the law. They could then go on to plan more dastardly acts with greater audacity and assured immunity. No detection is better than incorrect detection, in a long-term war against terrorism.

Existing laws in India already facilitate police processes. Under Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act, any information obtained by a police officer from a suspect in police custody is admissible evidence. The Gujarat police have not been able to unearth the network and resources of the 20 or so persons killed in encounters from October 2002 to February 2007 for their alleged plot to kill the chief minister and other VIPs. Was this because of the inadequacy of our laws or in fact a result of superfluous investigation and the absence of professional acumen?

Timely intelligence and its prompt operational utilisation are imperative for the neutralisation of terrorism. Counteraction or curative action should start from the gestation period of indoctrination, enrolment of recruits and their training, mobilisation of resources, creation of sanctuaries and striking cells, planning, preparation and perpetration of crimes. Incorporation of the proposed amendments to the GCOC Bill will not handicap the police in information collection, collation and analysis, or in operational use of intelligence, or in arrests, prosecution, conviction and decimation for the containment of terrorism.

Extension of the detention period from 90 to 180 days and curtailment of the courts’ authority to grant bail, as proposed in the GCOC Bill, amount to a retrogressive descent into police raj.

The efficacy of any legislation in a democratic nation lies in its intent to safeguard and sustain the rule of law and the rights of the weakest and the voiceless and not in injecting legal ammunition into police guns. Let us take care of the last man, in tune with Mahatma Gandhi’s concept of antyodaya, and guard against police boots crushing our citizens.

(RB Sreekumar is a former director general of police, Gujarat.)


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