POLICE BRUTALITY
“I object to violence because when it appears
to do good,
the
good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.”
-Mahatma Gandhi
INTRODUCTION:
Few months ago, there was a
deplorable mishap, where a father-son duo who was indicted for keeping their
shops unlocked thereby breaching the prescribed lockdown deadline. It is evidently obvious to every single person
in and around, about the arrest and the subsequent agony where blood oozed from
their rectums, pain that rushed through the veins, voice that stumbled to even
stand up for their personal esteem. It goes without saying wherein this
happened just as a replica and a clear indication of “police brutality”.
There was another notable occurrence,
where four men who were accused of gang rape of a Veterinary doctor in Hyderabad were shot dead by a police and the
entire nation was in cloud nine that the justice was upheld. But being a
serious admirer of Indian Law, who sincerely want this society to have their
move on the procedural framework that had been followed long since, we on a
deep sense appraise this (encounter and the momentum it gained) , an unnoticed side of police brutality.
“We, as a country, will now be told
that ‘justice’ has been done,
the victim avenged...
but this justice is ‘counterfeit’’
-The All India Progressive
Women’s Association.
Here in this context we will
examine brutality in its common as well as wider sense to ultimately bring out
the loop holes and the setbacks, the Indian Legal System is yet to pull
through.
LEGAL HUB:
“A right is not what someone gives you;
It’s what
no one can take from you.”
-Ramsey Clark
The frame of the society gives a lot
of power to the ruling class (here the police). Yet it is of no doubt that the people in common are
envisaged with even more rights for their survival with self-esteem and
dignity.
Though the concept of whether the
criminals actually need rights and dignity serves a salient question...!?
“Criminal Once”
need not necessarily be pointed as “Criminal Always” serves an apt answer to
this question.
Kick starting from trivial issues
like hand cuffing to bulk issues like encounters, here are the rights and
provisions that the Indian Legal framework guarantees its people:
❖
CONSTITUTIONAL VALIDITY:
Article 246:
Article 246 of the
Indian Constitution, propounds that police force comes under the purview of
state list. Each State and Union Territory will have its own separate police
force. Each State government will frame the rules and regulations for its
police force.
Article 21:
Article 21 of the Indian
Constitution lays out a bright lime light on the rights of persons arrested, under trial and even the
convicts. In a democratic country, whether it be a pin or a mountain everything
should be done “in and by the procedure established by law”. The powers of
police force to arrest are subjected to
certain restrictions. The judicial oversight safeguards the fundamental right
to life of all persons under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. This shows
that both the accused and the convicts have rights to utilize.
In People’s Union for Civil Liberties vs. Union of India[1],
The honourable Supreme Court held that murdering of two persons in sham encounter by the police
was explicit violation of the right to life; thus awarded Rs. 1,00,000 as
compensation for each deceased.
Article 22:
Article 22(1) and
Article 22(2) of the Indian Constitution grants four rights to the arrested or
detained person.
i.
He shall not be arrested or detained without being informed about
the grounds of his arrest.
ii.
He shall not be denied to consult a legal practitioner of his choice.
iii.
Every person who has been arrested has the right to be produced
before the nearest Magistrate within 24 hours.
iv.
The person is not to be detained beyond the prescribed 24 hours
without the authority of court.
Article 22(3) of the Indian Constitution acts as an exception. The
fundamental rights conferred upon the arrested or detained persons do not apply
to:
a) the person who is enemy
alien
b)
persons who are arrested or detained under
certain law which is made for providing ‘Preventive Detention’
Article 20:
Article 20 of the Indian
Constitution provides for protection in respect of offences. It puts forth
certain shelters to the person accused.
i.
Ex post facto laws [Article 20(1)] :
No conviction for any offences except for violation of law in
force at the time of commission of it. No penalty greater than that which might
have been inflicted under the law in force at the time of commission of the
offence.
ii.
Double Jeopardy [Article 20(2)] :
No punishment for the same offence more
than once.
iii.
Freedom from Self-incrimination [Article 20(3)]:
No self-incriminating testimonial
compulsion of the accused.
Landmark
Judgments:
#
Prakash Singh vs. Union of India[2]
( Police Reforms in India – Landmark
judgment)
The honourable Supreme Court has given
specific rules and regulations to the central and state governments to
effectuate structural variation in police, in order to wrap it from extrinsic
pressures and making it accessible to the public.
National Police Commission was
established in 1978 is the first committee after independence which gives
directions about Police Organizations, it’s role, functionality,
accountability, relationship with the public. It produces 8 reports in which
Model Police Act, 2006 is the major one. The core which the Model Police Act
insist is to give respect for and promotion of
human rights of the people.
Nilabati
Behera vs. State of Orissa[3]
The Petitioner’s son who was accused for
theft was found dead on the very next day in a railway track, with several
injuries which clearly indicated it, an unnatural death. The Supreme Court
awarded compensation to the petitioner on the ground of ‘Custodial death’.
# Joginder Kumar vs. State of Uttar Pradesh[4]
The Honourable Supreme Court held that
arrest should not be made except for monstrous offences and to have someone
informed of the arrest and consult privately with the lawyers.
# D.K. Basu vs. State of West Bengal[5]
The Honourable Supreme Court held that
Custodial Violence including torture and death in lockups and custody is
violative of the Rule of Law. The Supreme Court provided with the guidelines to
be followed by the police while arrest and detention:
⮚
The Police Personnel executing the arrest and conducting the
interrogation or investigation of the arrestee should bear accurate, visible
and clear identification and name tags of their designations. The specification
of all such officials who carry out the
investigation or interrogation of the arrestee or detainee must be recorded in
the register.
⮚
The Police Officer executing the arrest of the arrestee shall draw
up a memo and such memo shall be attested by at least one witness who may be
either a member of the arrestee’s family or a reputable person of the locality
where the arrest is made.
⮚
Any person known to the arrested, detained or the person in
custody shall be entitled to know about the arrest.
⮚
Inspection Memo- The time, place of arrest and venue of custody of an arrestee must be notified ,‘to
the person known to him lives’ by the police. Through Legal Aid Organization in
the District, such information should be transmitted by telegraph within 8-12
hours after the arrest.
⮚
The arrestee should be subjected to medical examination by the
physician, every 48 years during his detention in custody by approved doctors.
⮚
Copies of all documents comprising of arrest memo, inspection
memo, medical examination should be sent to the magistrate for his record.
⮚
The arrestee must be allowed to meet his lawyer during
interrogation.
⮚
The police control room should be and at all State and District
headquaters.
❖
CRIMINAL PROCEDURE
CODE , 1973
Warrantless
Arrest:
Section
41: Affords a lot of powers to the
police, where they can arrest persons without even a warrant for any cognizable
offence, or on reasonable suspicion and so on. But this doesn’t unanimously put
them in a dominant position. The accused person do have the rights to know
about the grounds of such arrest, mentioned in the aforesaid section.
Section
45: Members of armed forces cannot be
arrested for discharging their duties, unless prior permission from the central
government has been obtained.
How
to arrest:
●
The police officer can touch or confine the body of the person to
be arrested unless there is a submission to the custody by word or action.
●
If the person to be arrested resists himself from arrest or tries
to evade, such police officer can use all means necessary to effect the arrest.
The arrest shall involve only reasonable force when the arrestee tries to
escape or restrains from getting arrested.
●
Nothing applies to cause death of person who isn’t accused of
offence punishable with death or life.
Special
provision for women:
Section
46(4): When the
arrestee is a woman, the police officer should always be a female, and such
police officer shall not touch the person of the woman for making an arrest and
arrest would be presumed on her submission to custody on oral intimidation. No
arrest ‘after sunset and before sunrise’, except under exceptional
circumstances and only with the prior written permission from the local
magistrate.
Gratuitous
detention:
Section
49:
No unnecessary restraint of the arrested person to prevent escape i.e.
the arrestee shall not be subjected to more restraint than necessary to prevent
him/her from getting escaped.
Rights
to perceive:
Section
50(1): The person accused and arrested has
full rights to know the ground on which he is arrested and it’s the inherent
duty of the police to disclose such particulars.
Section
50(2): In case of warrantless arrest except
bailable offence, the police should inform the arrestee that he can be released
on bail and also promise that he may arrange for sureties.
Section
51:
The Police officer can make personal search of arrested persons, but
they cannot compel him for Self-Incriminating Testimonial.
Section
55:
It establishes the procedure to be followed when police officer deputes
some other subordinate, to arrest without warrant. He must deliver to the
officer required to make the arrest, an order in writing specifying the person
to be arrested, the offence and cause for such arrest. Such subordinate officer
should notify the arrested person about the causes and also if required by such
person, should show him the order.
Section
75:
Arrest with warrant: The police officer or the person executing the
warrant of the arrest shall notify the substance thereof to the person to be
arrested and if so required, show him the warrant[6]
Medical
Examination:
Section
54:
Bestows for compulsory medical examination by a medical practitioner in
service under Central or State government, or any other registered medical
practitioner if such officer is not present. Female arrestees should definitely
be examined by only a female medical practitioner.
Section
57: Produce such arrestee before the
magistrate within 24 hours of such arrest. # Khatri vs. State of Bihar[7]
Free Legal Aid:
After being arrested, the accused
has the right to consult and get defended by the legal practitioner of his
choice. If he is too poor to do so, the society under the Rule of law has the duty to arrange for the counsel[8]
❖
HUMAN RIGHTS
STANDARDS
“To deny people their human rights
is to challenge their very humanity”
-Nelson
Mandela
Policing in democracies:
⮚
The police shall furnish laws that shield the public safety and
the rights of all persons.
⮚
The police shall be a free-spirited frontier of the executive and
shall be subjected to the superintendence of the courts and margined by their
orders.
⮚
The police officers shall discharge their duties, powers and
functions as unbiased
servitors of the general public and
government of the day.
⮚
No police officer shall be stipulated or coerced to exercise their
duties or powers or avail police resources to elevate or undermine any
political party or interest group.
⮚
In the exertion of their rights and freedoms, everyone shall be
subjected only to such limitations as or determined by law.
Citizen’s
Corner - Non-Discrimination in Law Enforcement:
⮚
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
⮚
Law enforcement officials are bound to effectuate the duty foisted
on them by law, by serving the community and by guarding all persons against
felonious acts.
⮚
Law enforcement officials shall pay homage to human dignity and
nurture and uphold the human rights of all persons.
⮚
In the course of fortifying and aiding the community, the police
shall not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of language, colour, gender,
religion, property, birth, political opinion or other status.
❖
THE INDIAN
POLICE ACT, 1861
Sections 7 and 29 of the
Indian Police Act, 1861 accords the penalty, dismissal or suspension of police
officers who are reckless in the accomplishment of their allegiances. This sets
up liability on those officers who infringe the constitutional and statutory
guidelines.
WHY
SO RUDE..?
Down the street, when there is clumsiness overloaded,
in spite of all censures
all if’s and don’ts and
all
bumbles
we definitely to ponder into the
deep soils and unveil the truth. And this piece of work is best done only by a
cop. So when we see a person’s outlook
at a large, we definitely need to mind about the circumstances, situations and
more often the factors that made them of that sort.
Here, in this segment, we will talk
about “off the record” side of police community that depicts them in such a
denounced spot.
●
Surge of Psychological
distress:
“If you can’t handle stress;
everything gets screwed
up.”
There are various grounds that
influence their behaviour as a whole. The uninterrupted imposition of societal
pressure to investigate, interrogate and illuminate the crucial whereabouts of
the crime, to maintain social stigma and lot more of this sort bumps them up
with undeniably high work pressure.
On the other hand, the time
constraint to finish up the case, the trial by media, the pressure by department
or higher officials adds fuel to the fire which all together puts them in the
peak of stress that ultimately drives their behaviour.
●
Physical strain:
“Policing is a grunt work
which lurks a lot of physical strain”
Starting from ordinary health issues
to heart problems, increased levels of destructive stress hormones, suicide and
hence forth makes them physically weak as well. They argue that there are
shifts and time records but they are only on papers. More often the job stress,
long hours, low pay and lack of adequate grievance redressal stirs up their
physical as well as mental strain where they end up in brutality.
They live under the shadow of their
superiors forgetting their family whereby at the end they outburst all their
agony on general public in the form of brutality.
●
Mental Examination Zone:
There are certain factors that
accelerate the mental state ( i.e. the behaviour ) of a police officer. They
are:
⮚
Situational
⮚
Individual
⮚
Organizational
⮚
Community
“The face that the globe sees is not
always our character
more often our behaviour gets
sprung from the plight we get
exposed to..!”
Situational
factor:
The behaviour of the police officers
differs from human to human. The race, age, sex, outlook, caste, societal
background is some of the key determinants that influence their behaviour
towards both the convicts and the victims. Furthermore, the locus, number of
bystanders, presence and amount of evidence and seriousness of the offence also
plays a significant role.
Individual
factor:
“Don’t trust any police officer
because they are trained not to
trust you”
This is a sort of complicated
concept where the education, training, investigatory procedures influence their
individual behaviour to a wide extent. They always follow a suspicious routine
because they are trained to do so. This greatly influences their character.
Organizational
factor:
Workplace
brings out two things:
Either You reflect
yourself or
Your folk’s reflection
influences you.
Staying, working and discussing on
something that always invokes negative vibes, makes you get adapted to it. A
long time practice becomes a habit which eventually changes your behaviour.
Community:
”Small acts, when multiplied by
millions of people can transform the world”
-Howard Zinn
This is one undeniable factor which
creates a greater impact upon their behaviour. Society rules the table and like a giant wheel, it
sways the globe to its best and the worst. The escalation in crime rates itself
inhabits a considerable amount of pressurized space in their work agenda. Adding
to this, comes the media trial, territorial, political protection (like
Bandobast), demographic characters, more importantly the public expectation.
These burry them deep inside and when they try to strike it big, they often
loose temper which portrays them brutal.
Fatal Ends:
⮚
March 7, 2018 – R. Sathish Kumar shoots himself due to heavy work
pressure at Ayanavaram, Chennai.
⮚
March 4, 2018 – Arunraj of Armed Reserve Wing of city police ends
his life at Jaya Memorial.
⮚
August 7, 2017 – Special SI Ashok Kumar attached to Pulianthope
police station sets self on fire and dies.
REMEDIES:
“A single remedy can obliterate
hundreds of prescriptions,
thousands of scandals,
millions of reproaches.”
Here are some essential remedies and
changes that the law needs to make this brutality endeavour to get faded of its
traces.
●
High priority to the
National and State Human Rights Commission’s Recommendations :
Laws that compel the State Government
to follow the recommendations made by the HR Commissions should be enacted. As
these recommendations are not mandatory it usually falls on deaf years. Strict
imposition of HR recommendations should be made.
●
Serious scrutiny of the
procedures followed:
Indian Legal framework has built its
castle in such a way that it strives too hard to be free from ambiguity. It
provides with written laws and ensures that it binds all sorts of possibilities
to eradicate vagueness. Whether it be constitutional provisions, Cr.P.C
provisions or any other Act in relation to this, the outlook is clear cut. But
the field of execution lacks its supervision which increases the brutality
regime.
●
Professional load:
“Too much of anything
spoils everything.”
Lack of recognition, Peer pressure,
Greater risk of being injured, Unequal work load, Upholding an impeccable image
in public, Low-pay are some key issues that every police men face. This can be
much reduced by additional number of police appointment, so that division of
labour within themselves makes their work easier.
●
Capacitate booming laws:
The police take great
effort to catch, interrogative, investigate and unravel the truth. But the
convicted in no time gets bail, comes out and commits the same crime again
which would put the police to severe agitation.
Laws that impose striking
punishments on the convicts and that makes the bailing procedures a bit
complicated should be introduced to reduce crime rates, thereby stirring up the
spirit of police officers.
●
Individual entity:
Separate bureaucracy to
track complaints lodged against police officer’s use of excessive force. Most
of the complaints are not openly made, which makes it hard to track. So, we
need a separate independent bureaucracy to ponder upon those brutality complaints
which can augment the public’s belief and hope as well.
●
Regular Counseling:
The Director-General of Police in
Uttar Pradesh, boasted to Human Rights Watch,
“If you brought a US policeman here, he’d commit suicide within one
day. Here you are literally thrown against the wall. We don’t have a shift of
8-10 hours, it is the system we have: we work 24 hours a day”
A survey that transpired
a decade ago throws light on the long working hours – the reason for police
cruelty which in turn led the way to ‘shift system’. This initiative failed to
bear the sufficient fruits due to lack of fund to pay the more recruited police
officers.
STATISCAL CORNER:
“Five custodial deaths daily”, says report – ‘The Hindu’
The National Crime
Records Bureau (NCRB) disseminates data
on the number of deaths that the year 2018 has
witnessed with respect to police custody.
Custodial Death – States that ‘rules
the table’:
Between 2014
and 2018,
⮚ Maharashtra (78)
⮚ Andhra Pradesh (70)
⮚ Gujarat (52)
⮚ Tamil Nadu (35)
⮚ Uttar Pradesh (30)
⮚ Madhya Pradesh (30)
elucidates 69% of the Custodial Deaths reported in the whole of India
during those years.
Zero
Police Convictions:
Between 2014 and 2018, 452 deaths were reported in Custody
of which only 192 cases were registered and only 118 police officers were
charge sheeted. The bitter reality is
not even 1 from 118 were convicted during this period.[9]
“A report on 2019 exhibits 1606
deaths happened in Judicial Custody and 125 in Police Custody.”[10]
“Out of this 125 deaths in Police Custody, UP topped with 14 deaths, followed
by Tamil Nadu and Punjab with 11 deaths each and Bihar with 10 deaths. The
States like Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Delhi and Odisha stands the next.”[11]
CONCLUSION
There has been increase in police brutality over the last
few decades. When the police personnel, who are obliged to safeguard the people
and preserve law and peace, overindulge in felon-like behaviour, it brings a
great infamy and discredit to their uniform and law. When a human’s behaviour
appears brutal we call him an ‘animal’. But it is an irrefutable fact that
humans are the only animals who manifest brutality. The people who look on and
do nothing will be accounted more for a crime, than the people who actually do
it. Watching something, doing nothing adds on to the main stream commotion. So
now raise your voice up, and this time in a bold and even more bright-eyed and
bushy-tailed way.
“Not for special status;
Not for opulent life-style;
Not for virtuous leaders;
Not for immaculate society;
But just to get rid of the pangs of
agony of being slaves
and
to quench the thirst of ‘JUSTICE’.”
* *
[1] People’s Union for Civil Liberties vs. Union of India AIR (1997)
SCC 56
[2] Prakash Singh vs. Union of India AIR(2006) 8 SCC 1
[3] Nilabati Behara vs. State
of Orissa AIR (1993) SC 1960
[4] Johinder Kumar vs. State of Uttar Pradesh AIR (1994) SC 1014
[5] D..K.Basu vs. State of West Bengal AIR (1997) 1 SCC 416
[6]
Foot Notes 4 & 5 i.e.
4Johinder Kumar vs. State of Uttar Pradesh AIR (1994) SC 1014
5 D..K.Basu vs. State of West Bengal AIR (1997) 1
SCC 416
[7] Khatri vs. State of Bihar AIR (1983) SC 378
[8] Law
Commission of India, 14th Report, Vol. I, page 587-600
[9]
The Annual Crimes in
India ncrb.gov.in/en/crime/india
[10]
India Annual Report on
Torture 2019
uncat.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/INDIATORTURE2019.pdf
[11]
National Campaign
against Torture uncat.org
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