Police reforms needed as cops are still seen as unsympathetic, says Home Ministry

NEW DELHI: The Union Home Ministry has said police forces are still seen as selectively efficient, unsympathetic and often accused of politicisation and criminalisation in an internal note that puts the onus of bringing in police reforms on the state governments.

The June 13 ministry note says public expectations from the police have grown many times, and the police system needs to be reformed to be in tune with the present-day scenario. "Police reforms have been on the agenda of governments since Independence, but even after more than 50 years, the police are seen as selectively efficient, unsympathetic to the underprivileged," the note says.

The ministry holds that it is primarily the state governments who have to implement various police reform measures because police is a state subject and Centre has constitutional limitations.

"The Centre has been making consistent efforts to persuade the state governments from time to time to bring the requisite police reforms in the police administration to meet the expectations of the people," the note says. As a case in point, it has been mentioned that only 15 states have either formulated or amended their existing Police Acts after a draft Police Act was forwarded by the Centre to all states in 2006.

The Centre and the state governments have been pulled up by the Supreme Court in an ongoing case regarding the implementation of police reforms as per an apex court judgment in 2006.

The ministry says there has been a "significant and substantial" compliance of the apex court order by the Government of India in the Union Territories (UTs) with a draft Delhi Police Act on the anvil. "Orders constituting a Security Commission in all UTs (except Delhi) have been issued on February 7, 2013, to monitor public security and take decisions periodically to rectify the identified system deficiencies.

The ministry has taken a policy decision that senior police functionaries would have a minimum tenure of two years as far as possible. Union Territories have been advised in this regard," the ministry says.