Plea filed in Supreme Court seeking 'model police Bill' to secure rule of law

New Delhi: A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking constitution of a ‘model police Bill’ to make policing system “transparent, independent, accountable and people friendly”. The petition, filed by advocate and former Delhi BJP spokesperson Ashwini Upadhyay, sought a direction to the Centre to constitute a ‘judicial commission’ or an expert committee to examine the Police Act of developed countries, particularly the US, Singapore and France and draft the ‘model police bill’.

The PIL, which is likely to come up for hearing in the coming days, also urged the court to direct the Law Commission of India to examine police Acts of these countries for drafting the bill in order to make the police system “efficient, effective, transparent, sensible, accountable and techno-savvy, and to secure ‘rule of law’ and right to life, liberty and dignity of citizens”. The petition, filed by advocate Ashwani Kumar Dubey, alleged that the 1990 Kashmir killings did not only happen in the dark of the night but in broad daylight as well “because what we have is ruler’s police not the people’s police”.

What happened in 1990 in Kashmir, it happened in 2021 in Bengal as well and that too in broad daylight. But police did nothing as what we have is ruler’s police, not people’s police," it claimed. The ‘Colonial Police Act 1861’ is ineffective, outdated, cumbersome, and has completely failed to secure rule of law, right to life liberty dignity and other precious fundamental rights of citizens but executive did nothing to amend it, the petitioner said.

The PIL further alleged that many times, police don’t lodge FIR without consent of MLAs or MPs of the ruling party. “And even if they lodge FIR on the court’s order, the ruling party representatives decide what sections should be used against accused,” it said. It further said that politicisation of the police is the biggest threat to rule of law and right to life liberty dignity of citizens. A sizeable percentage of officers carry an invisible stamp on their foreheads showing their loyalty to particular political party, the PIL said.

If police officers had “operational independence”, the killing of Sikhs in 1984, Kashmiri Hindus in 1990 and the recent post poll violence in West Bengal “would not have featured in our history”, it claimed.