TS challenges judge’s fiat for setting up a body to look into police excesses

HYDERABAD: The Telangana government filed an appeal before a division bench of the High Court challenging the order of a single judge who had directed it to constitute ‘State Security Commission’ and ‘Police Complaints Authority’ at the state and district levels for redressing people’s grievances in respect of police stations.Principal secretary to home and three other officials concerned, in their appeal, submitted that the order of the single judge had been passed contrary to the guidelines formulated by the Supreme Court in Prakash Singh case.

The single judge had, in his order, included the member-secretary of the State Legal Services Authority of the state concerned state as member of the State Security Commission and secretary of the District Legal Services Authority as a member of the Police Complaints Authority at the district level. But that was not specified in the composition of the commission and authority respectively as suggested by the apex court, they pointed out and urged the bench to set aside the impugned order. The appeal is expected to come up for hearing this week.

In April last year, the single judge had, while dealing with petitions filed challenging the action of the police officers concerned in summoning them to their offices and illegally confining them and indulging in physical and verbal abuse, directed the AP and Telangana governments to constitute the above two bodies within three months for redressing the grievances of the public in respect of police actions. The judge made it clear that the recommendations of the above commission shall be binding on the state government. 

Further, the single judge had said that the functions of the state security commission would include laying down  broad policies and giving directions for preventive tasks and service-oriented functions of the police, evaluation of the performance of the state police and preparing a report thereon for being placed before the state legislature. Further, there shall be a police complaints authority at the district level to look into complaints against the police officers of and up to the rank of deputy superintendent of police.