The NGOs working on police reforms have criticised the Delhi government’s move to constitute a Police Complaint Authority with depleted strength, while demanding that the proposed body be incorporated in the Delhi Police Amendment Bill 2010 to give it more teeth.
The NGOs have complained that the proposed Police Complaint Authority is just a four-member body, while Delhi’s population as per last Census stood at 12 million. “Given that one in every 10 police persons in the Delhi force has a complaint against him, we believe that the authority is likely to be left wanted dealing with so many complaints,” the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) has noted in its criticism.
CHRI director Maja Daruwala stated that a weak Police Complaints Authority will do more harm than good. “It will become one more location of failure to address the wrongs in policing. In a democracy, every institution of state must bear with checks and balances to its power and open and repeated scrutiny of its functioning,” she said.
The CHRI has suggested that the proposed authority must have powers not only to look into serious complaints, but to observe and make reports on the internal handling of complaints by the public against the police. It must have powers beyond the present ones to issue suitable orders that go beyond merely recommending the filing of an FIR or initiating a departmental inquiry, added Mrs Daruwala.
The Union home ministry had recently invited public feedback on the proposed Delhi Police Amendment Bill, 2010, with the city government organising a seminar, which was attended by jurists and experts.
On the direction of the Union home ministry, the Delhi government is in the process of setting up a Police Complaint Authority, which can be approached by citizens to lodge complaints against the police for any wrongdoing. The NGOs are demanding that the Union home ministry hold consultations with the public at large and the city government on setting up of the Police Complaint Authority.