Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Mr.Justice B.P.Jeevan Reddy, the law Commission Chairman while talking on 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.
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
unfair and illegitimate means. Such jobs command money in multiple suitcases in
advance to the posting in addition to periodical profferings 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
It is tragic that the police which is morally and professionally bound to protect the
public from the vice of corruption is 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 take disparate forms in
diverse circumstances, but all leading to the same unfortunate end: derailing the rule of
A south Indian state saw in 1998 several wars of attrition between a Police
Commissioner and his political boss about posting of their own favourites 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 fightings 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 illgotten 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
Added to this is those 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
encouraged those down the line to take bribes and shared the booty. He used to insist
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. A 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, never to return to the state
sinsyne.
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. 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 who 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 victimised
and likely to be removed from their coveted posts in the city police. The Police
saying that every father puts his heart to celebrate his daughter's marriage a grands frais
CONSCIENTIOUS POLICING:
policing. Serious and committed policing is conditio sine qua non for professional
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-eing
in February 1992 was referred to the state investigation agency for investigation. The
investigation made out a case for chargesheet against the retired judge and five other
persons including his wife, son, two daughters and another person The chief 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 investagation
to its logical end. But, arrests in the case were prevented and chargesheet was unduly
delayed from above. The insistence of the Superintendent of Police, to chargesheet 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 chargesheet for more than 1 ½ years sinsyne till the IGP was
transferred out of the organisation in 1993. The case was later chargesheeted in March
1994 with the retired judge and his two daughters dropped from the chargesheet on the
basis of the evidences tampered at later stages. The dropped names were later included in
the chargesheet on the orders of the judge trying the case. The IGP who tried to stall the
wheel of the legal process subsequently succeeded in gaining entry to a sensitive police
organisation like the CBI and held the job till 1997.
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 sysptomatic 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
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
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
at the cost of the general public is an apostasy from the inviolable professionalism of the
police. The police in a democracy is 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 inveterated. 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
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
republic.
In the perverted situation of India where the loyalty of the police to those 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 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
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 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. Organisational objectives were
completely lost sight of. Shifts in diligence helped to build money-power while shifts in
after throwing professional ideals to dogs. The degeneration spread in leaps and buonds
with the passage of time as the organisational commitments became demode and
pragmatism taught that immediate personal interests are the center of leading a good life.
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 bound the force together was squandered,
centrifugal forces took over and dissipating attitudes behaviors and influences ruled the
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 accrescently tools of political convenience. The
development shattered the professional pride of the police and struck a blow to their
motivation towards the organisational 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
Myopic and maffled approaches of the police often lead to untold miseries and
in 1986 eloped with a man against the wishes of her parents and was hiding in the
neighbouring state of Karnataka. The couple were 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 were traced in Bangalore and were
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
STRUCTUAL CHANGES:
The first and foremost job to do to bring back the police on rails is to extricate the
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
devised by which the Authority becomes responsible directly to the legislature and
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
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
Police is not an odd -job boy of the government. It is not the hand-maid of
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 can not take it far in the absence of credibility,
respect and sympathy of the public. Once the police lose their usefulness in political and
power gameplans 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
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