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Police Reforms must be adopted by the Government for establishing the Rule of Law

     More than six decades has passed of our Independence but we the Indians are still following the British made Laws one such example is Police Act 1861. During the colonioal period the motive of the Police was to suppress the common man and in order to obey the Government orders exploiting the common people BUT  in the post- independence era the role of Police has changed. Now We live in a welfare state and in this welfare State the role of Police is to Safeguard the right of every common people of the society and not to exploit the common people. Now police are the public servants and police should serve the common masses and society.

    That, till today we are following the century old Colonial made police Act and due to this reason the attitude of police towards has not yet changed though their role and nature of duty has changed. Police always has the tendency to exploit the common downtrodden masses. Police are in most cases non-co-operative with the common people. Police still works under the influence of their political masters.

  Moreover, due to the joinder of duties of both investigation and Law and Order Administration maintenace the police are overbardened and because of this the investigation of crimes are hmpering tremendously and as the Cr.P.C. has given ample power to the Police during invstigation stage so the Police taking advantage of their over burdened duties either makes delay or tries to take illegal gratification to perform any investigation which in turn affecting badly the  justice delivery system.

    Hon'ble Suprememe Court of India, in a historical judgement in the Year 2006 in a PIL filed by the Prakash Singh, given order to reform existing criminal justice system to establish better rule of law in the country. The Supreme Court has Ordered to do some revolutionary changes in the Indian Police administration. The Indian Police should be more accountable and should not entertain any kind of political interference.  The Supreme Court has issued seven directives to the centres as well as states to immediately implement the 7-point directives.

    The bench of Chief Justice Y.K Sabarwal, Justice C.K. Thakkar and justice P.K.Balasubramanyam ordered to implement the order on the recommendations of the National Police Commission (1977) recommendations.

The directives too, includes the directives to separate crime investigation and prosecution process from the maintenance of normal law and order.

    That, even after the passing of 4 (Four) years of the said historic order by the Supreme Court, neither the Central Government nor any State Government has taken any major steps to implement police reforms.

   In the year 2008, the Justice Thomas Committee was set up to monitor the implementation of police reforms. Justice Thomas in his report submitted to the Apex court said that none of the States have implemented the Apex court's direction on police reforms.

   On 8th November, 2010 Supreme Court issues notices to the four States Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and West Bengal for total non-compliance of the Order.

   On 06th December, 2010 the Supreme Court said that it would see to it  that its judgement on police reform was implemented in its entirety and it was not left in limbo. " we don't wantour judgement to lie in the courtroom," the  Apex Court said. There should be uniformity in the implementation of its direction on police reforms, said the Apex court special bench of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia, Justice Aftab Alam and Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan.

    The court was reviewing the implementation of police reforms by the West Bengal, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh. "We only want the time table for the separation opf investigation from law and order duties of the police, " the Apex Court said, giving the states Four weeks' time to indicate the approximate time they would require to implement the reform in a phased manner.

   Inspite of their reluctance to implement the police reform the States must have to obey the Apex Court Direction and shall have to implement the Police Reforms within no time.

 

Pronoy Kumar Ghose

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