Praveen Kumar Policing The Police > Law&justice

LAW AND JUSTICE

Justice begotten at a cost is justice lost. The fact is lost sight of by present administration of justice. Justice necessitates an integral vision. It cannot be isolated from its environment, past, present, future, diverse issues, people involved and related events. It means delving into the heart of an issue and delivering justice taking into account all related issues and matters to the rightful entitlement of all. This presupposes a passion for objectivity and justness and above all, selflessness in the arbitrators of justice as well as in those who are in the service of the administration of justice. The role of the police in the administration of justice comes under scrutiny in the context of their part in the investigation of crimes and maintenance of law and order.

The police play umpteen roles as executors at the grassroots level. They are basically performers, actual doers in the field. Passion is the normal trait of action. Objectivity and

justness seldom give company to those who act to show results.

Expecting selfless traits in policemen is akin to waiting for rain drops to fall from bright white clouds. The policemen perform their duties with normal flair and loyalty while put in service of justice. Only they lean towards the rich and the powerful.

Loyalty to justice is a noble cause. It signifies a heightened mind bound to a heightened cause. Loyalty to a value or a just cause is always a great virtue. The same cannot be said about loyalty to individuals of whatever importance. Individual loyalty in

2

the service of the administration of justice is self-defeating. The achilles’ heel lies in loyalty, basically faith, a blind faith, sans stirrings in the conscience. The only loyalty desirable for those in the service of the administration of justice in addition to the loyalty to the cause of justice and other virtues is loyalty to conscience, freedom of thought and independent judgement. A policeman with his loyalty can do an exemplary job in the administration of justice.

The police, as the cutting-edge of governance, enjoys enormous powers. They can prevent, check, prohibit, restrain, regulate, confine or arrest erring people. They can forcibly break-open, enter, search and seize when the need arises.

They may use

weapons to hurt and kill. These extraordinary powers are tools of the police in serving the interests of justice. The police, as the means of justice, is exempted from the process of justice by the law itself. The relevance of the police in the administration of justice is two-fold: one, fair exercise of their powers to ensure that no harm is done to the process of justice. There is virtually no way to force them to comply with the needs of objectivity and fairplay in work save their own interpretations of laws and actions. Interference of the court often is to little, too late to be meaningful. The lack of a sound mechanism of supervision and the poor position of the policeman in society, mediocre education and a deviant job culture inhibit the police from performing at levels commensurate with their responsibilities. They have no organisational pride. Field orientations distract them from high human values. A weak economic position and opportunities to make easy money render them prone to corrupt practices. There is nothing tangible in their service to inspire a commitment to the noble cause.

3

Shallow policing is responsible for all the mishaps and turbulence of the first half century of independent India. Another factor is the exercise of their special powers without going

against justice. The police is a fence which, with its extra-ordinary

powers, however, can ruin the crop it is asked to protect. The enormous powers confer special responsibilities on it to protect innocent people from a rash exercise of powers.

Every person thinks he is right and every criminal is just in his own assessment. Every act of a human being has its own logic, reasons and justifications. This is true of the police too. Every encounter, every lockup death, every third-degree method, every wrongful confinement, every illegal arrest and every excess committed by the police has its own justification. It is irrelevant how the justifications appear to outsiders. You seldom find a policeman confessing to a wrong or an excess committed. Commissioners have explained away the gunning down of innocent citizens by subordinates in broad daylight

as a case of mistaken identity. We have any number of cases of senior police

officers colluding with subordinates in destroying evidence of lock-up death cases.

The cause of failure of the police lies more in the system’s failure, the character of its main players, deviant job culture and wrong leadership than in the concept of policing. Police in an inappropriate milieu may turn into a monster.

These days the executive heads of government opt for their own men in the police force to head premier investigation agencies; political rivals are investigated and

4

charge-sheeted on flimsy grounds while cases of national significance drag on. The police is reduced to the state of a tool of political revenge in this power game. In the process, the police loses its credibility as a nonpartisan player and an infallible tool of establishing justice.

Making justice a costly affair gives another dimension to the issue. Effectiveness of the police

lies in its ability to make justice an easily and cheaply dispensable

commodity. The police is the first line of defence. Courts come on the scene only in a far later stage. Most cases of dispute never go beyond the police stations. Good police certainly symbolises effective administration of justice more than courts and prosecution department together do.

5