India: An Institution For Sale

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AHRC-STM-211-2012
October 22, 2012
A Statement from the Asian Human Rights Commission
India: An Institution For Sale
If a police officer decides to make money illegally, what would the officer do? There are many ways the officer could think of, including but not limited to, seeking bribes, illegally registering and compromising cases, or collecting protection money from people and businesses. In all of this, irrespective of the mode, the officer is selling the officer's uniform, figuratively. However an incident reported from Kerala suggests, that a police officer did sell his uniform, literally.

Mr. Hassan Kutty, Assistant Sub Inspector, attached to the Karimannur police station of Idukki district in Kerala sold his uniform to Mr. Beeran for 50,000 rupees. Beeran, wearing the uniform and posing as a police officer from Kerala, robbed Mr. Moideen, a businessman near Ukkadam bus stand at Coimbatore in neighbouring Tamil Nadu state on 25 September. When the 'act' was exposed, Hassan Kutty was suspended from service.

The incident however is not handled with the seriousness it disserves. In all likelihood, Hassan Kutty will soon be reinstated, since a proper investigation in this case is not expected.

In that, police in Kerala is no exception to the rest in the country. Police officers with serious criminal charges like murder, rape and abduction against them are in service throughout the country. Cases of police torture and other forms of brutal custodial violence reported from India also suggests that a considerable number of officers in fact suffer from serious psychological conditions and that these officers use brute and perverted forms of violence against the people and are unfit to serve in any law enforcement units.

The entire establishment is in fact misused and the officers let it be so, by those who wield financial, political and religious influences. The country's political elite believes that the police must implement the writ of the state by force and creating fear. This requires allowing and cultivating a culture of impunity for the establishment. It is for this reason why there is no attempt in India to create a legislative framework that is able to deal with criminality and professional misconduct among law enforcement officers.

Crime control in India is thus reduced to maintaining order, without a just legal framework. The limited scope offered by the Criminal Procedure Code, 1974 is negated in all possible means. Due to this redundant approach to policing, police service has remained one of the least reformed state institutions in India.

It is reflected right at the inception into the force itself. Candidates offer and selecting agencies accept, huge sums of money as bribe to obtain a job in the police. From then on, for everything else, officers must bribe politicians and senior officers. This includes transfer and promotion, or to obtain officers' quarters, or to get a 'good service' entry in the service book.

The fate of most disciplinary proceedings against officers is decided according to the bribes demanded and paid to senior officers and often to politicians. Even if an officer is suspended from service, the proceedings could be easily revoked, if bribes are paid at the right places.

It is reported that at the moment, the bribe paid to obtain postings within Delhi city limits as an Assistant Commissioner of Police is 40-50 lakh rupees. It is natural that these officers who pay right from their entry into service to everything else maintaining no morale at all.

In fact it is impossible in India to be a police officer with morale. Officers across the country use the filthiest of languages, even in their wireless communications. Anyone who has overheard messages passed over a police constable's wireless devise can vouch this.

The absence of professionalism in service is not however limited to use of foul language. It is common for senior officers to abuse their subordinates in some of the most inhuman manners. Officers lack respect between each other and in particular the subordinate officers treat their seniors as spineless criminals and with utter disrespect. Worse is the treatment of civilians inside police stations. In fact most police stations in the country resembles frightening dungeons from the medieval period.

Officers also lack basic skills and equipments to undertake criminal investigations. Most criminal investigations begin and end with a confession from the suspect, extracted using torture. The practice of torture is so rampant in the country that a police station where torture is not used would be an exception.

In fact most police officers do not know that torture is a crime against humanity. Irrespective of ranks, officers believe that they have a legal right to torture suspects and in fact many do not know how to undertake a criminal investigation without torturing suspects. Many Magistrates also believe that a police officer torturing a subject is an acceptable form of investigation.

It is due to these reasons that conviction rate in India is a dismal four to six percent. Attempt however is not to modernise the police, but to shortcut jurisprudential fundamentals on the pretext that at the moment the criminal law is unevenly pitted against the prosecution, and is favouring the accused.

It is this rotten institution that is expected to police the largest democracy of the world. Unfortunately the present state of policing in India is incompatible with the concept of fair trial and hence with democracy.

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About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation that monitors human rights in Asia, documents violations and advocates for justice and institutional reform to ensure the protection and promotion of these rights. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.

ENDS

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