Mid-Day:
Mumbai: Monday, 27 October 2014.
Were it not
for the fact that politicians’ vice-like grip over the power to transfer
policemen has always been an elephant in the room, the reply to a recent RTI
application by former Chief Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi would have
come as a thunderbolt of a revelation.
Gandhi asked
the Maharashtra government how many policemen, from the post of inspector
upwards, were transferred in 2014, and how many of these were done by invoking
a clause which permits the government to cite “exceptional circumstances”. 147
out of 150, was the candid confession of the Home Department. Were any reasons
accorded for this exceptionally liberal use of an exception clause, ostensibly
meant to be used only in case of exigencies? Even if there were, because the
law makes it mandatory, the government will not tell us, for reasons of state.
At best, some apocryphal statement would be trotted out, and that would be the
end of the matter.
This is
precisely the sort of malpractice which is institutionalised by Clause 22 N of
the Maharashtra Police (Amendment and Continuance) Act, 2014. This law was
passed to ostensibly comply with the Supreme Court’s directives on reforming
the police by dragging it out of the present morass of corruption and
arbitrariness. But a simple scrutiny would expose how subversion, and not
compliance, was foremost on the agenda of a government determined to treat
policemen’s transfers as its personal fiefdom, and as the proverbial sword of
Damocles to make upright officers do its bidding.
The Supreme
Court had vested in the Police Employment Board (PEB) the power to decide on
transfers and other service-related matters; the State government “may interfere”
only in exceptional circumstances and only after recording its reasons in
writing. This, the court hoped, would curb the menace of undue political
control over the police. But it had not reckoned with the Maharashtra political
executive, which has never masked its hostility to any idea of relinquishing
control over the police force.
Thus,
sub-clause 2 was incorporated in Clause 22 to scuttle the PEB’s efforts. It
allows the Chief Minister and Home Minister to intervene and effect transfers
in “exceptional cases, in public interest, and on account of administrative
exigencies.” The last two criteria have been extensively adjudicated and the
results of judicial interpretation have not left much space for political
maneouevering. But the vast swathe of “exceptional circumstances” defies any
reasonable interpretation which can somewhat act as a rule of thumb.
Moreover,
every time a transfer has been effected for reasons extraneous to those of good
governance and public accountability, the government will sit pretty while the
cop will have to slug it out in court and prove that there was a mala fide or
arbitrary exercise of the vast discretionary power. Not only will this offer
sufficient time to carry out agendas being impededed by “inconvenient” cops, but
also entrench political patronage by creating a cadre which shall wear the
badge of servility either out of pride or out of fear.
This isn’t
the first instance of the government clamping down on the independence of the
police. A Home Department directive dated 23 April, 2010, made it man-datory
for the police top brass to have a prior consultation with the Addl. Chief
Secretary, Home before transferring inspectors, especially those in charge of
police stations.
Then, the
treatment meted out to Arup Patnaik, former police commissioner of Mumbai,
proved that even the topmost echelons of the force would be susceptible to
decisions based on political expediency and foul caprice. It took only one MNS
rally where Raj and Shalini Thackeray demanded Patnaik’s head for his alleged
pusillanimity in dealing with the Azad Maidan rioters, for him to be “promoted”
(euphemism for shunted out) to an administrative post.
In 2012,
Patnaik had been praised by Julio Ribeiro, one of the most iconic police chiefs
of this city, as well as by Congress MP Husain Dalwai, for acting with
effective restraint, without letting the situation spiral into a carnage
reminiscent of the 1992 riots. But the very next day after the MNS and Shiv
Sena skewered Patnaik for going soft on belligerent Muslims, Dalwai and his
government did a total volte face and blamed him for gross ineptitude.
The RTI
revelation is the canary in the coal mine. Unless Clause 22 N is suitably
amended, it shall pave the way for a politicised and politically polarised police
force, dependant upon political patronage for its essential survival.
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