GANAPATHI BHAT, AKOLA

Minimal accountability, disdain for court directives and abysmal conviction rates are factors that continue to embolden the Indian police to run amok. When an innocent common man including the educated and privileged fears the police, it speaks volumes about his/her abject loss of confidence in the law enforcers. Chief Justice of India N V Ramana’s take on human rights violations at police stations is making headlines. Justice Ramana was vocal over his displeasure about police stations becoming the first point of threat to human rights. He should know well because the Supreme Court guidelines in all cases of arrest or detention are clear-cut. Though the Chief Justice specifically spoke about the third degree treatment meted out to the accused and improper behaviour of police at stations, there is no doubt that he had in mind the boiling issue of custodial deaths. Indian police assume they are ‘powerful and privileged’, if thrashing an arrested person defines ‘power’. That is what exactly the Chief Justice has lamented: violation of bodily integrity at police stations. No state, barring a few, has put the ‘Police Complaint Authority’, as ordered by the top court, in place. Displaying clever ignorance to the fact that forceful confessions do not have legal standing the police revel in beating an arrested to pulp to extract confessions. Augmenting investigative techniques, providing better facilities in rural police stations, refresher courses in wide ranging subjects, psychological counselling – all these are some ways to reform the police. For transparency, a video camera may be fitted to their bodies, during and after arrest, on similar lines as their counterparts in the US and UK. As Justice Ramana has said, display boards and outdoor hoardings in police stations depicting the salient features of free legal aid services should help. Also, doctors conducting the postmortem examinations and judicial magistrates in front of whom the arrested are produced, require appropriate training.