The State Police Complaints Authority (SPCA), Kerala, is currently hard pressed to provide justice to citizens who feel their police have done them wrong, according to its chairman V.K. Mohan.
At a press conference called here on Wednesday to announce a national seminar on “Recent Developments in Human Rights and Policing” (Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will inaugurate the event at 10 a.m. at the Tagore Centenary Hall on July 25), the former judge of High Court lamented that the SPCA lacked a full-time investigating officer.
The lacuna had hobbled the forum’s ability to professionally investigate complaints in which citizens accused their law enforcers of misconduct, torture, corruption or abusive behaviour. The authority’s functioning has been reduced to recording the statements of complainants and little else. It worked on skeletal staff.
Mr. Mohan said he had proposed to the government to grant the SPCA a professional investigator, preferably an officer from an investigative agency other than the State Police Department, to fill the vacuum.
A recent High Court order that decreed that only the full quorum of the five-member SPCA could adjudicate on complaints had stalemated the forum’s functioning. It was now in no position to admit or process petitions from the public.
Mr. Mohan said the High Court order, in all its wisdom, had posed some practical problems. Two of the authority members were top executives in the State government, one the Principal Secretary, Home, and the other an Additional Director General of Police. Both were under pressure for time and could not always be present for sittings.
He said he had proposed to the State to amend the law duly to circumvent the High Court order and allow the chairperson, singly, or with other two members, to adjudicate on legal matters. Ideally, the government should make a full quorum mandatory only for administrative issues, he said.
Since its inception in 2012, the SPCA has processed 3,261 petitions out of the total 3,602 it received from the public. He said the SPCA could only recommend to the government to act against errant officers. It had little authority to impose its order. The fate of many of its rulings was unknown.