TN govt appoints 4th police commission, how effective will it be?

On January 19, 2022, the Tamil Nadu government went ahead and constituted a fourth police commission to enhance the relationship between the police and the public. This four-member commission consists of an IAS officer, an IPS officer (both retired), a mental health expert and a retired professor.

A serving IPS officer will be the member secretary, while the commission will be headed by a retired Madras High Court judge CT Selvam.

The constitution of a police commission for the fourth time gains importance due to the recent police atrocities such as the alleged custodial deaths in Namakkal, where a differently-abled man died in a custody, and the extra-judicial killings in Kanchipuram and Chengalpattu, where two murder suspects and a chain snatcher were shot dead. Besides the human rights violations like the police slapping a youth, who had staged a demonstration before the Villupuram collectorate for delaying his community certificate and much more such incidents.

Though police officials mostly seem to escape scot-free in many cases, some get suspended when videos of their violations go viral on social media as it happened in the case of the Villupuram student. Similarly, nine police personnel were booked for assaulting a law student in Chennai recently.

“In the 2021 Assembly elections, the DMK had promised that if the party came to power, it would constitute a police commission, to enhance the relationship between the police and public, and consider the welfare of the police, and recommend necessary schemes and training to them. Accordingly, a commission has been constituted”, the statement from the government said.

Also read: Death of a disabled Dalit in custody in TN evokes horror of police torture yet again

What did police commissions in the past achieve?

Earlier, three commissions were set up by the DMK in 1969, 1989 and 2006. In 2019, the then AIADMK government had constituted a commission, which was headed for the first time by a retired woman bureaucrat Sheela Priya.

However, in September 2021, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court ordered the state government to reconstitute the fourth commission set up in 2019, since it had retired bureaucrats and police officials as members, instead of psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers and advocates.

The DMK government reportedly dissolved the commission set up by the AIADMK and constituted an entirely new commission as the fourth police commission.

Though the reports of the commissions, between 1969 and 2019, have not been made public to date, one can glean information from historic records about the recommendations made by these commissions over the years.

An essay titled ‘Law Enforcement’, written by Amit Varma, an IPS officer, who held the position of Additional Director General of Police, Chennai in 2010 and died in harness the same year, said that the two state police commissions constituted by the state government in 1969 and 1989, have made a substantial impact on police “organisation and functioning”.

“RA Gopalaswamy Commission, the first state police commission, submitted in 1971 a comprehensive document with 133 recommendations to improve the Tamil Nadu police. The government accepted 116 of them and they were implemented in a phased manner. Some significant improvements offered a substantial relief to the lower subordinates in the police department.

Also read: TN has seen 3 police encounters since Oct; is it justified?

The report of the commission also led to a territorial reorganisation in police jurisdiction”, said Varma in his essay, which was published in the 2008 book, ‘Madras, Chennai: A 400-year record of the First City of Modern India’ – Volume 1′, edited by renowned historian S Muthiah.

The essay threw light on how the state police commissions gave importance to modernising the department.

The second commission, appointed in 1989, envisaged a more expansive role for the police force by way of enforcing legislations with respect to dowry deaths, social disabilities, labour welfare, consumer protection, etc., he added.

“The commission listed a hundred recommendations to improve the operational efficiency and welfare of the police force. Most of the important recommendations were accepted by the government and have been implemented in a substantial measure,” wrote Varma.

According to him, the various developments that were undertaken have been inspired directly or indirectly by the recommendations of the police commissions.

For example, the modernisation of the police force (establishing a police training workshop-cum-school in Avadi in 1976), changes in recruitment (such as recruiting women constables and sub-inspectors for the first time in 1973), reorganisation and upgradation (splitting a district into administratively viable units) and, administrative streamlining and specialisation (forming special units to deal with extremist activities, bomb detection and disposal quads, state crime records bureau, etc.,) have all stemmed from these commissions.

The third commission, headed by the former bureaucrat R Poornalingam and set up in 2006, submitted its recommendations in February 2008. While submitting the report, the commission had pertinently observed that “A high power committee consisting of Home Secretary, the Director General of Police, and the Finance Secretary (or) his representatives may be formed to study the recommendation and carry forward the implementation in a time bound manner (say within a year)”.

How productive are these commissions?

Talking to The Federal on the condition of anonymity, one of the chairpersons of a former commission said that most of the recommendations by police commissions have not been implemented.

“We worked for one year and have given about 450 recommendations, which includes the issue of custodial deaths. But I doubt, if most of them were implemented. As a commission, we can make many recommendations but it is easier said than done,” he pointed out.

Though the commission headed by him urged the government to make the recommendations public, it has not been done yet, he added.

“By making these reports public, there could be a debate. Either the general public or police officials can say whether the recommendations the commissions have made are right or wrong. But it seems, these commissions are just an eyewash,” he said.

Dr Syed Umarhathab, assistant professor, department of criminology, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli said at the national level, most of the police commissions have been effective. In the state level, the police commissions set up by Kerala and Madhya Pradesh have more useful than the ones formed in Tamil Nadu.

“However, the current DGP Sylendra Babu has done his Ph.D. in criminology. He has a better understanding of these commissions. Hence, we hope that this time the commission’s recommendations will be implemented effectively,” he said.

Talking about the differences between the national and state-level police commissions, Syed said that national commissions have academicians, researchers and advocates as members. But at the state level, as far as Tamil Nadu is concerned, it is doubtful whether any of the criminology professors have been incorporated as members in any of the past commissions.

“Why we demand that academicians and advocates should be made as members is because they continue to push the government to make the commission’s report public. It was because of academics and researchers, some of the initiatives like having the all-women police stations and a reception in police stations were implemented,” said Syed, who also serves as the secretary of the Indian Society of Criminology, Chennai.

The government sees police as a ‘force’ and not as a ‘service’. Until this point of view changes, nothing is going to change, he added.

Meanwhile, S Balamurugan, an advocate and a member of People’s Union of Civil Liberties said that the problem lies with police academies that teach cops to be brutal.

“When I go to police academies to conduct workshops and seminars, the police personnel are interested to know how to escape from the clutches of law if they violate basic human rights. They have understood the awareness of human rights in a wrong way. This needs to be changed at the foundation level. We need to democratise and make the police law-abiding and get them to rise above a feudal mentality. This will be some of the best police reforms in my view,” he said.