If you are inebriated enough that you can not take care of yourself, you could be liable to pay a fine of Rs 1,000. If you bring a servant from your home town and you fail to submit him or her for police verification, the fine could be Rs 5,000. Delhi Police (Amendment) Bill 2010 (http://www.delhi.gov.in/), which has seen spirited opposition from leading citizen groups in the capital, who went all the way to the Union home minister, P. Chidambaram, and the home secretary, G. K. Pillai, is now open for public scrutiny on April 24, with the conference to be presided over by the chief minister, Sheila Dikshit, after the Lt. Governor Tejendra Khanna refused to do the honour, and would be attended by noted jurist, J. S Verma, police expert, Kamal Kumar, and a host of people drawn from all walks of life, including four journalists.
This legislative proposal, which will go to the Parliament, needs to be studied closely and enough voice need to be raised, as it has serious consequences for the citizens. At the outset, one can summarise this legislative proposal an attempt by the Delhi Police to garner as much power as it can in the name of improving effective policing. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and it applies very well on the Delhi Police, which is fat enough to have more than 60,000 cops on its roll.
There have been backgrounds for this legislative proposal in the form of Supreme Court directions, Nanavati Commission recommendations and reports of the Administrative Reforms Committee. Delhi Police (Amendment) Bill, 2010 does not conform to the above cited backgrounds and rather bares the mindset of the city police, which believes in just making laws for effective policing.
Against the provision of the CrPC, this bill says that no one can ask for report on arrests made by the police and also does away with the magisterial inspection of the arrests made. Further, the police commissioner or any member of the police (even a constable) can give a "verbal order, declaring riots situation, which will be notified in 24 hours". These two provisions are against the spirit of the freedom of the civic society and the concept of checks and balances and will have serious consequences.
Further, the new bill proposes to empower the police commissioner, being the head of the proposed Police Establishment Board for transfer and postings of junior officials, while for the seniors the proposal does away the concept of a three member screening committee, which includes the chief secretary, home secretary and a member from the police. While the first proposal leaves the scope of corruption in transfer and postings, which is reported to be the biggest source of money making by corrupts, the second does away with the civic society having any say in this matter.
All the earlier recommendations of excluding the non-core functions of the police have equally been ignored. Take for the instance, Delhi police has roughly 200 staff designated for the work of issuing all kinds of licenses, which does not happen to be its core functions. Licensing in all the states is with the civic departments, which even in Delhi can be done that too with higher satisfaction for the citizens.
The preposterous proposals in this bill are regarding the fines, which have all been raised roughly by 10 to 50 times. All the fines would be in the range of Rs 1,000 to Rs 10,000. A jaywalker would be liable for a fine of Rs 1,000, while the same applies for those urinating in public and much more. The question here is whether a commoner keeps Rs 1,000 in his wallet all the times. As is the image of the police, this will lead the police to indulge in taking Rs 200 in place of Rs 1,000 to relieve the man from the charges of offending the law and would just add to the rampant corruption among the men in khakhi.
Delhi Police (Amendment) Bill, 2010 needs close scrutiny and is available on http://www.delhi.gov.in/ and people can leave their comments for Mr Vishvendra, Deputy Secretary of the Home department of the Delhi government. All the public comments will be compiled and will be sent to the Union home ministry along with the draft of the bill, so that the Central government can take a reasonable decision on this proposal. It's time to be informed citizens and become a part of the decision making process.
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