CORRUPTION:

INDIAN POLICE SCENARIO

Mr.Justice B.P.Jeevan Reddy, former law Commission Chairman while

talking on the provision of forfeiture of property illegally acquired by public
servants under the proposed bill titled the “ Corrupt Public Servants (Forfeiture
of Property) Act, 1999" said, “Corruption has been severely affecting the
country’s economy, security and administration. To weed out this dreaded
disease from public life, we need a bitter medicine.” All previous measures to
rein-in corruption in public life failed because nothing mattered as far as the ill-
gotten property is safe a huis clos. Situation may change tout ensemble after the
proposed legislation becomes law and gallows the corrupt of wiping out the
very corpus of the corrupt deeds and striking at the very roots of corruption.
Corruption unfortunately has become an accepted phenomenon in extant
Indian society. No more it attracts societal disapproval or contempt. Wealth is
seen as wealth whether it is begotten by fair or illegitimate means. Nowadays,
jobs having means of easy money are sought and bought at all costs. It is why
such jobs command high premium in the job market. It is no secret why jobs
in select departments in government service are in high demand. And within these
departments there are specific posts that command high premium on account
of their potentiality to generate enormous wealth by unfair and illegitimate
means. Such jobs command money in multiple suitcases in advance to the
posting in addition to periodical proffering for keeping the job terms because
those payments are proved sagacious investments. Politicians, journalists to the
victims of the system while condemning the vicious practice from the public
platform accept it as the sine qua non reality of the life. The sterling question is
whether corruption in any form with the concomitant atrophy in administration
and public life should be tolerated to disgorge the vitals of the Indian democratic
fabric.
It is tragic that the police who are morally and professionally bound to protect
the public from the vice of corruption are among the avant coureur in the
pernicious race. Sadly, the addiction is uniform at all ranks from Police
Constables to Police Commissioners save rare exceptions. The corrupt practices

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take disparate forms in diverse circumstances, but all leading to the same
unfortunate end: derailing the rule of law and the loss of credibility of the police.
A south Indian state saw in 1998 several wars of attrition between a Police
Commissioner and his political boss about posting of their own favorites to key
positions, leading to messy and dangerous situations like more than one police
officer being posted to the same key post of profit and all of them holding to
it fast for months together. Often fighting broke out among the contenders in
the same post for the loaves of power and other behoofs and such matters made
headlines in newspapers. It is wrong to heap all blames tout a fait on any one side
as corrupt. Certainly no side is a paradigm of virtues in the extent rat race for pelf
and booty. Corruption in India has become just a rider of the availability of
opportunities to share the res gestae of the power.
Police is an institution in the service of law and order. Every case of
corruption involving the police represents a case of the rule of law and justice
harrowed. Imaging the extent of the distortion of the rule of law and justice and
the betrayal of the hoi polloi by the police machinery that apportions in some
cases a crore of rupees a year to middle-ranking official as the ill-gotten money.
The mise en scene is complete with the swarms of police officials of all ranks au
reste warring inter se with wads of high denomination notes to corner posts
potential of generating unlimited illegitimate wealth. Added to this is that
apparatchik at the top making transfers and postings a thriving business. What
can be expected from a law and order machinery run with such a symbion, but
gross abuse and distortion of the rule of law? That is why police is often called
the legalized mafia.
Karnataka had a Superintendent of Police in Dharwar district in 1980 that
openly encouraged those down the line to take bribes and shared the booty. He
used to insist down the line that they were free to allow illegal activities like
gambling dens, prostitution, illicit distillation etc. in their respective areas,
provided the criminals remain under their control and run the activities pro rata
to what they proffer to the police. Maffled logic indeed. Naturally, he was very
popular among the corrupt subordinates. He left the district in 1981 and
thereafter luckily went on central deputation to the Intelligence Bureau only to
return to the state in 2001.
Corruption has disparate facets. And each has its distorted justification. There
is a case of a Police Commissioner whose misuse of the police machinery in the
marriage of his daughter in 1998 became a stormy issue in the public eyes after
press made it big. The press claimed that the subordinate police officers were
forced to man the doors of the marriage hall and escort VIPs visiting the place.

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And police wireless and departmental transport facilities were recklessly made
use of in the marriage and its preparations. Soon the issue was hijacked by the
subordinate police officers of the city to the media and gave press statements that
police officials were allotted duties in the marriage a la police duties in a security
operation and expressed fears that those who failed to budge would be
victimized and likely to be removed from their coveted posts in the city police.
The Police Commissioner openly defended his action in the interview to a private
TV channel saying that every father puts his heart to celebrate his daughter’s
marriage a grands frais as his parting gift and he was not an exception.
CONSCIENTIOUS POLICING
Conscientious policing is raised on the bedrock of committed and non-
corruptible policing. Serious and committed policing is conditio sine qua non for
professional policing and professional policing presupposes duties and
responsibilities taking precedence over personal comforts and safety. Being
conscientious brings depth and width to the profession and raises policing to
nobler heights. Corruption in whatever form is the antithesis of this. It pulls down
the police from its elevated position as the national asset and insurance against
the atrophy of national values, security and well-being of the hoi polloi.
A case of dowry death reported against a retired high court judge and his
family in February 1992 was referred to the state investigation agency namely the
Corps of Detectives for investigation. The investigation made out a case for
charge sheet against the retired judge and five other persons including his wife,
son, two daughters and another person The head of the investigating agency in
the rank of IGP being egregiously corrupt and close to the retired judge, dragged
his feet from further proceedings in the case. The Superintendent of Police who
was supervising the investigation of the case wanted to take the investigation to
its logical end. But, arrests in the case were prevented and charge sheet was unduly
delayed from above. The insistence of the Superintendent of Police, to charge
sheet the case as the logical step of the investigation process cost him his post and
he was transferred in July 1992 to the State Home Guards as the head of its
training wing. The case remained frozen sans charge sheet for more than 1 ½
years sinsyne till the IGP was transferred out of the organisation in 1993 to the
Central Bureau of Investigation under the central government and held the job
till 1997. The case was later charge sheeted in March 1994 with the retired judge
and his two daughters dropped from the charge sheet on the basis of the
evidences tampered at later stages. The dropped names were later included in
the charge sheet on the orders of the judge trying the case.

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PROFESSIONAL OBJECTIVITY
A police organisation open to public pressures can do no policing worth the
name. They very idea of being receptive to pressures and interferences is
symptomatic of lack of will for objectivity and justice. Criminal elements take
advantage of such opportunities to drive the police and the policing on the
wrong rails. Pressures often render the police to commit crimes under the veil
of authority either by protecting criminals or more dangerously, by replacing
them with innocent people as criminals. The possibility of being open to the
pressures of the rich and powerful deprives the police of its credibility. A police
force that works at the behest of the rich and powerful safeguards the interests
of the rich and powerful only. It would thus be factious and a villain to the hoi
polloi. Does democratic India need such a police force to perpetuate the tyranny
of the poor and helpless by the rich and powerful? Democratic India tolerated
such a police in the last five decades. India and its people must now abraid to
the situation and spawn a police that behooves to the trust laid on it.
The aberration of professional objectivity is the Achilles’ heel of the police of
independent India. The problem was simple in British India where ruler and
ruled were distinctly bifurcated and ipso facto the loyalty of the police was
perspicaciously defined unlike that of the Indian republic of the democratic genre
where people rule themselves through elected representatives. Here the loyalty
of police to the public and public law is the professional ethic: misplaced loyalty
to an individual, a family, a party or an ideology at the cost of the general public
is an apostasy from the inviolable professionalism of the police. The police in a
democracy are the guardian of public interests and public safety unlike in the Raj
where the police protected the interests of the Raj. This distinction is forgotten
in independent India where mental fetters are yet to be broken and legacies of
the British rule continue inveterate. How can a police that stays loyal to personal,
familial or party interests ever discharge its functions objectively to law and
general public? What can its locus standi be when a different person or party comes
to power? A sequacious police is an asset to any individual or party and no
sensible individual or party distances it in the name of the professional ethics. It
is the paravant duty of the police not to breach the edifice of the police
organisation and its spirit by misprising its professional standards. This
infrangible obligation is thrown to the winds in the maelstrom of career
advancements by the self-seeking gendarmerie of the Indian republic.
In the perverted situation of India where the loyalty of the police to that in
power rather than to professional ideals is a reality, none can vouch that police
responsibilities would be carried out strictly on merit of each case. Factional

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loyalties have the singular potentiality of blasting fairness and impartiality. It

renders professional loyalty meaningless. A mature and sober political leadership
can make up for the Achilles’ heel of the fractured loyalties of the police
organisation. Indian police needs a sober organisation above to bring it on rails
of carrying out its responsibilities. The neoteric judicial activism, as far as
periodical review of the progress of investigation of some cases of national
importance is concerned, is a welcome step, though in normal circumstances,
such a judicial review would have amounted to gratuitous interference with the
independent functioning of the investigating authority.
CHANGING VALUES
Corruption of Indian police quite possibly is consectaneous of the degringolade
of values in Indian life of the post-independent era. Indian police cannot stay
sequestered from developments around while there are marked falls in standards
of diligence and integrity in other walks of life. It adopted and adapted to the
corrupt surroundings and the result is extant corrupt police, India finds itself
with.
The basic lures of corruption in Indian context are money and power. As
government service even at higher rungs lost charm in terms of monetary
comforts and prestige and power, it attracted only the second bests or the lesser
from the crème de la crème of the country’s youth, who in turn were left in
lurches in the service to mend themselves. This started a mad rush to the res gestae
of pelf and power at the cost of professional dignity and integrity. The situation
led to corruption and brought shifts in the concepts of diligence and professional
loyalty and rearranged the service objectives with priority to filling the coffers of
money and power. Organizational objectives were completely lost sight of.
Shifts in diligence helped to build money-power while shifts in loyalties molded
proximity to powerbrokers in efforts to maximize individual behoofs after
throwing professional ideals to dogs. The degeneration spread in leaps and
bounds with the passage of time as the organizational commitments became
demode and pragmatism taught that immediate personal interests are the center of
leading a good life. This was the beginning of corruption of Indian police in a
big way.
A major factor responsible for the corruption of Indian police is the gross
fall of its professional pride since independence. Crass and insensitive handling
of the police and police matters by political leaders frustrated the high morale
and sense of belonging of the police force. Attempts to suppress and gain
complete hold over the police in democratic India affected the force adversely
and injected a sense of inadequacy in the force. Once the centripetal force that

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bound the force together was squandered, centrifugal forces took over and
dissipating attitudes behaviors and influences ruled the roost to bring the Indian
police to the present triste state.
Motivation to achieve organizational goals and show results being weakened
is the inevitable manifestation of the fall of professional pride. The police which
once prided in enforcing law, maintaining order and ensuring peace and security
of the hoi polloi, lost all its enthusiasm for these ends as they became factors of
politicking and lost importance independent of political relevance as crimes,
criminals and law and order and their handling by the police became increasingly
tools of political convenience. The development shattered the professional pride
of the police and struck a blow to their motivation towards the organizational
ends. No organisation can exist sans a driving force to sustain it. The result is a
vacuum of a drive to carry the police onward. The vacuum is filled by corruption.
Indian police find in corruption a way to sustain itself in absence of any
organizational objectives to drive it onward.
Myopic and maffled approaches of the police often lead to untold miseries
and blatant violation of basic rights of simple individuals. A daughter of an
influential man in 1986 eloped with a man against the wishes of her parents and
was hiding in the neighboring state of Karnataka. The couple was in their twenties
and decently employed. The chief of intelligence of Karnataka was sought
assistance to trace the couple and ensure that the daughter rejoins her parents. The
intelligence machinery started to work in festinated zeal and the couple was
traced in Bangalore and was separated. The man was held in illegal confinement
and exposed to umpteen threats while arrangements were made to call the
influential man to rejoin his daughter. The man in confinement was set free only
after the influential man reached back his home with his daughter. The action of
the police in this case perspicaciously is against the law of the land and violated
the basic rights of a young couple.
STRUCTUAL CHANGES
The first and foremost job to do to bring back the police on rails is to extricate
the police from the unhealthy influence of all hues by making it responsible to
an independent Authority with absolute powers to take decisions on matters of
policing and police organisation. The Authority should be a professional body
of men and women of proven probity and competence, who reached a stage
from where they need not sacrifice their convictions to appease those in power
as members. A working arrangement is to be devised by which the Authority
becomes responsible directly to the legislature and functions independently a la

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the judiciary, the Central Vigilance Commission, the Comptroller and Auditor
General or the Chief Election Commissioner.
Creation of a Core Group of people adept in assessing men and character
within the aforesaid Police Authority helps to create a feeling of confidence and
job security in police and prod to discharge duties fearlessly. This Group that
oversees the work of police personnel from a distance should be ultimately
responsible for all career decisions in the police force. The responsibility of senior
officers in assessing the work of the subordinates that forms the major
embarrassment of the present Indian police dispensation must be limited to
giving opinion about the performance of their subordinates to the Core Group;
the expert Core Group must process the opinion by its own research, expertise
and discretion and take responsible decision on its own research, expertise and
discretion and take responsible decision on its own. The Group must be made
responsible for all development plans of the police, work assessment, job
analyses, recruitment and management of human resources etc. Institution of
such a Core Group to oversee the career development of police personnel
without personal bias may bring revolutionary changes in police by committing
it to its work ethics and professional ends with single mindedness.
Police is not an odd-job boy of the government. It is not the handmaid of
politicians in or out of power. Police is an organisation of professionals
committed to the safety, security and well-being of the country. Justice and rule
of law are the litmus tests available to achieve the ends. Once police miss the bus
of justice and the rule of law, their goals of safety, security and well-being of the
public remain a distant dream. They lose the credibility and respect of the public,
so essential for effective and proficient policing. The fear that the police inspire
cannot take it far in the absence of credibility, respect and sympathy of the public.
Once the police lose their usefulness in political and power game plans
consequent to losing public credibility, their political patrons will discard them
like used condoms. The best bet for the police is to be professional and
committed to their responsibilities towards the administration of justice. Police
would forget this need only at their own peril. Doing anything violative of its
raison d’etre like sabotaging the course of justice and the rule of law in the cauldron
of corruption will prove fatal to the relevance of the police to the society.

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