Policing the POLICE

Policing the POLICE
By Maxwell Pereira

Is it a fact that the police do not respond to complaints made at police stations? The majority of complaints against police personnel and their functioning stem from the perceived evils of non-registration of cases, and the so-called rude, crude and unwarranted behaviour on the part of the police personnel, at times leading to the misuse of authority. It’s often alleged that the usual method of attending to complaints is so harsh that people do not like to visit the police station. What then is the Police Department doing to remove this malady and ensure that the citizens of Delhi get a proper hearing?
Perhaps not everyone knows about the vast public-grievances redressal machinery that exists within the Delhi Police Department. Checking against non-registration of cases and looking into complaints relating to mis-behaviour are just two of the various types of complaints that are looked into by vigilance cells created in the office of the Commissioner of Police. Follow-up on investigations in registered cases, and watch over persons of doubtful integrity are the other important areas covered.
It has been the endeavour of the Police Department to advocate free registration of all reported crime. The effort throughout has been to improve the functioning and role of the staff posted in the police station reporting rooms, relying on the time-tested advise of psychologists that granting a patient hearing to a complainant is nine-tenths the job done.
Proper follow-up, of-course, is essential. But whether or not this follow-up materializes, becomes a secondary issue. More often than not, it depends on whether the complexities of law and the circumstances of the case finally solve the case. Well, we may not always succeed. The fact remains that not everything reported at police stations can be taken at face value. The instructions to our reporting rooms staff are to ensure that the complainant does get a hearing, and that at least he goes away satisfied that the process for redressal of his grievance has been set in motion.
The police is often accused of not taking prompt cognizance of grievances. Unfortunately, the term “cognizance” also plays a major role in the perceived police response, since the majority of the complaints made to the police are of a non-cognizable nature, where police intervention in the form of registration of a case is not possible in terms of enacted law. This is something not every complainant knows. The level of awareness being what it is, the fact remains that the public’s role expectation regarding police functions is often at variance with the legally assigned role for the police.
The year 1995 began with a decision to renew emphasis on free registration of crime in the Capital, with the realization that a free and transparent system of registration of cases was the first and inevitable step towards refurbishing the police image. The stress on a statistical comparison of crimes and reliance on statistics-based evaluation also encourages a tendency to burk (police parlance for non-registration of crime) cases and minimize crime. While such reliance presents a distorted picture to the public eye, this system has far graver consequences – it enables criminals to escape the clutches of law with impunity. Public resentment and castigation become inevitable.
As against this scenario, prompt and free registration of cases has the advantage of projecting the correct crime situation, enabling logical assessment of requirements and infrastructure to meet the challenges in battling crime. It satisfies the needs of aggrieved citizens, who have been increasingly finding themselves helpless before a rash of lawlessness and crime. Undoubtedly, the emphasis on free registration would provide the much needed fillip to the police image, and result in eliciting public cooperation essential to effective policing. As witnessed over the past 15 months, the snowballing effect of free registration has helped us in policing the city better, and in making Delhi Police a force to reckon with.
What else does the police do to check against non-registration? In all cognizable cases where an FIR is registered, the Duty Officer is required to ensure that a copy of the FIR is given to the complainant immediately and wherever it has not been possible for the complainant to collect the FIR copy immediately for whatever reason, it is mandatory for the police station to send a copy of it by post to the complainant. To check that this instruction is complied with, pre-paid letters are sent by supervisory levels to complainants picked up at random from among registered cases, with a questionnaire requesting the complainant to send us feedback on whether or not his complaint was correctly recorded, whether the copy of the FIR was given to him, and whether he has been dealt with courteously with proper behaviour. This feedback does act as a deterrent to the would-be-aberrator.
Then, the SHO is required to remain available in the police station at a fixed time so that complainants can meet him. The doors of the supervisory levels including those of the ACP, the Addl. DCP and the DCP at the district level, the Range ACP and the Commissioner of Police at the Police Headquarters are ever open to the aggrieved individual. It is pertinent to mention here that during 1995, the Vigilance unit received 40,549 complaints, of which 37,153 were sent to he concerned units.
The Vigilance Branch also contacts complaints at random to ask about their experiences at the police stations. Even here, the emphasis is on the immediate issue of the copy of the FIR and the return of the articles seized by the police to the lawful owner. The Commissioner of Police has further constituted a high power checking team from the Police Headquarters under the command of an independent ACP for frequent surprise checks at police stations. The team lays emphasis on spot corrections and recommends action only in extreme cases.
With all this redressal grievance machinery available in addition to the people’s own elected representatives ready at hand to pursue their causes, it would be a tall call to claim that one’s complaint still does not get a hearing. In Delhi, at least!
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An IPS Officer, Maxwell Pereira is the Additional CP (Southern Range), Delhi Police
Published in The Indian Express on 27.7.1996 Better Living /Crime Beat Column