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TIP FOR PUNJAB POLICE
A Short cut to image building: Asset Declaration
Mansewak Singh
 At
a time when the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reform is
leading the charge to bring about transparency in judicial system,
why are there not demands enough for senior police officers to make
their assets public? At a time when the police forces are widely
seen as harboring many corrupt elements, it will do the image of the
police a great deal of good if the DGP of, say, Punjab, was to
declare that assets of every SHO and senior officer will be made
public.
Yes, there are too
many SHOs. And there are too many officers. But that will be all the
better, since the people's perception is that there is too much
corruption.
Police in India,
given the real ground conditions, is considered the most powerful in
the world by many observers but in terms of standards of
accountability, however, the police is viewed as the least
accountable.
Unlike in case of
judiciary, there is no sustained campaign by any civil society
groups and activists. Many think that if such a campaign was taken
up, the sheer force of public opinion will ensure that the party or
the government which brings this about this move will stand to gain
a lot of goodwill.
The Campaign for
Judicial Accountability and Reform (CJAR) is one such civil society
initiative, which has from time to time brought together on a common
platform various grass-roots activist groups to seek judicial
accountability and to mobilise public opinion on the demand for
transparency in the functioning of the judiciary. It is time that
this campaign is extended to the security forces too.
 With
all his proclaimed honesty and transparency, the Akali Dal president
Sukhbir Singh Badal can take a lead. He is the Home Minister
incharge of the state too and is also the Deputy CM. With his father
as the CM and little resistance within the party or the government,
this one step will make him stand out from the crowd of younger
politicians in India.
To begin with, he
can propose that the police officers can voluntarily disclose their
assets on the website of the Punjab Police. In times of the era of
Right to Information (RTI) which has already caught the public
imagination, it is only appropriate that the people get to know how
the poor policeman lives. The honest police officials will be only
too happy to declare their assets as it will help quell and negate
the perception about widespread corruption in the force.
Of course, there
will be resistance initially, and it is no fault of the police
officers. Even in case of Supreme Court judges, there was strong
resistance. We still do not know if the judges have been complying
with the 1997 Resolution or the Code of Conduct. Also, whether
assets disclosure will be accessible under the RTI still needs to be
decided.
In fact, the Bill
that is sought to be introduced in the Rajya Sabha to help introduce
accountability among the judiciary should be for all public servants
above a certain level. Why should the civil servants be required
merely to disclose assets to the government, and not to the public?
“Not merely assets, even income tax. Unless you know the income
statements, you can’t compare their assets with their income to see
whether the assets are disproportionate to their known sources of
income or not,” Prashant Bhushan, convener of the Campaign for
Judicial Accountability and Reform, has said in a recent interview.
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The line
between unwarranted invasion of privacy and the public interest
There is no privacy about income tax. That is the public duty of
every citizen. In my view, any information required to be
submitted by law to a public authority cannot be considered
personal information having no relationship with the public
interest. If there is no relationship to the public interest,
then there will not be a law requiring you to submit information
to a public authority. And it cannot be considered an
unwarranted invasion of privacy. If you have to submit
information to a public authority, what is the problem in
declaring it to other citizens? Whatever invasion of privacy has
to take place has already taken place when information is
disclosed to a public authority...
The income statements, right now, are not available. I am of the
view that they should be available under the RTI Act. |
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He has also
underlined that the view that income tax returns filed with the
Income Tax Department are exempt because they are personal incomes
is certainly erroneous. “If the assumption is that personal
information or information that will cause unwarranted invasion of
privacy has no relationship with the public interest, it is clearly
wrong. Even if income tax returns can be considered to be personal
information, certainly it is related to the public interest. The
public interest requires that people know whether people are paying
their taxes or not; whether their assets are disproportionate to
their known sources of income or not. Not merely public servants but
every citizen’s income tax return should be available under the RTI
Act,” he said.
Well, imagine a
scenario where you can log in and get access to the income and
assets of each of the police officers in Punjab?
During the
militancy era in Punjab, scores of Punjab Police officers were
accused of making money through illegal means. Such a scenario can
be nipped in the bud if the citizenry has the access to the assets
of the senior police officers. One major benefit will be that it
will also bring into public gaze the plight of the lower rank
constabulary that is paid peanuts but is expected to hold the front
lines in case of any law and order situation. An average Indian is
much less aware of the travails of the Sipahi on the ground whose
duty hours are undefined. In any other department, the employee will
benefit from undefined hours; in the force, that may mean duty
schedules running to 12 hours or more. When police officials under
such pressure are perceived as corrupt, it acts as double whammy. It
will be better if they take the moral high ground and beat even the
judges by making asset declaration mandatory.
On the lines of the
proposed national judicial complaints commission to entertain
complaints against judges, to investigate them and take action,
there can be a national commission to probe the conduct of police
officers. This is all the more important as in most cases of human
rights violations, it is the police that is involved, as per the
National Human Rights Commission data. Just as the judiciary acts
like a class, rather like an oligarchy, so does the police force in
India. Even on the assets disclosure, the majority of the Supreme
Court judges were against it. It is the pressure of public opinion
that has forced them to change their minds. There are a few judges
who are not opposed to assets disclosure. Similarly, there will be a
few good souls who will not be opposed to asset declaration by the
police.
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New-age policeman should be
professional: PM
New Delhi:
Favouring a new-age policeman who is well trained, more
professional and suitably empowered, Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh has said Central and state governments need to take quick
action to strengthen policing at the grassroots level.
"The police
station has to be the fulcrum around which this needs to take
place. A large increase in the number of police stations along
with raising the strength of police stations has to be
undertaken," he told a conference here of Directors General and
Inspectors General of police organised by Intelligence Bureau.
The PM said the
country needs far higher number of policemen to improve the
present low police- population ratio of 145 per lakh people and
as a first move, urgent steps should be taken to fill up the
large number of vacancies that exist at various levels in the
police.
"But increasing
numbers alone will not be enough. We need a new-age policeman
who is more professional, better- motivated, suitably empowered,
well-trained, and one who places greater emphasis on technology
for investigation and other tasks," he said.
Singh said
emphasis should be on capacity building from the police station
level itself, so that the police is better equipped.
"Each police
station should aim at being self-sufficient and needs to be
given the required resources in terms of anti-riot gear, better
weapons, the nucleus of a mobile forensic unit and be connected
to a networked criminal data base management system," he said.
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16
September 2009
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