OPINION: Police caught between a rock and a hard place

Laws in India are built on the basis of distrust towards the police. Thus, witnesses produced by the prosecution often turn hostile. It is an anachronism that you start with disbelieving the law enforcement machinery
In olden times, when a prince was sent abroad for education, a whipping boy would accompany him to take the blame in case his master made a mistake or was a slow learner. It was the whipping boy who would face court disasters, criticism and suffer all harm on behalf of his master. He was a convenient target.
Today, in India, an alternative to the whipping boys of yore has been found in the form of security personnel — particularly the police — especially with regard to law and order crises. Since one can never blame the courts for fear of contempt, it is either the police or the paramilitary or the Army at whose doorstep the blame is most often laid. This is more so the case when dealing with problems in disturbed areas.
Now, against this backdrop, let us revisit the killing of 75 CRPF personnel and one policeman by Maoists on April 6, 2010, at Taadmetla village in what was then part of the Dantewada district (now in Sukma). Police had charged 93 persons but could arrest only 10. The accused were acquitted this January 8 as all the 43 prosecution witnesses had turned hostile.
But this is not surprising given that most of the accused in India are eventually let off. Conviction rates in this country, even for crimes such as rape and murder, range from 25 per cent to 40 per cent. This is partly because modern India’s criminal justice system is based on laws that were framed way back between 1861 and 1863. At that time, problems like Maoist terror did not exist.
Also, laws in India are built on the basis of distrust towards the police. It is no wonder then that witnesses produced by the prosecution often turn hostile. It is an anachronism that you start with disbelieving the law enforcement machinery. The absence of a Witness Protection Act or a Whistle Blower Act — the need for which has been emphasised more than once by the Supreme Court, the Law Commission and the National Police Commission —also does not help matters.
In a number of cases, starting with Swaran Singh versus State of Punjab AIR 2000 SC 2017, the Supreme Court has observed that a criminal case is built on the edifice of evidence; evidence that is admissible in a court of law. For evidence to be strengthened, witnesses are required. But often the witnesses are a harassed lot. “A witness in a criminal trial may come from a far-off place to find the case adjourned. He has to come to the Court many times and at what cost to his own self and his family it is not difficult to fathom. It has become more or less a fashion to have a criminal case adjourned again and again till the witness tires and he gives up”, the apex court has said.
The Supreme Court also made clear that this is the game played by unscrupulous lawyers who get cases adjourned on one pretext or the other, till a witness is ‘won over’ or he quits. And that is not all. Often witnesses are bribed, threatened, abducted, tortured or even killed. There is no protection for the witnesses.
Also, a witness is not treated with respect in the courts. He is pushed around from one crowded courtroom to another by peons and clerks. For all these reasons and others a person abhors becoming a witness. Consequently, “it is the administration of justice that suffers”, the Supreme Court has observed. For the Government, however, it is business as usual. So, the criminal is emboldened.
Lynching of rapists and criminals is often reported in the media. Such cases of ‘instant justice’ take place because, as a Bench of the Supreme Court observed in February, 2009, the criminal justice system has collapsed. “The courts of magistrate and munsif have ceased to be an option for the common man”, the Bench said, and compared the lower courts to ill-equipped and ill-staffed public health centres in rural areas.
In Babu Singh versus State of UP, the Supreme Court of India stated: “Our justice system, even in grave bases, suffers from slow motion syndrome which is lethal to ‘fair trial’, whatever the ultimate decision. Speedy justice is a component of social justice since the community, as a whole, is concerned in the criminal being condignly and finally punished within a reasonable times and the innocent being absolved from the inordinate ordeal of criminal proceedings”.
The Union Minister for Law and Justice conceded on January 12 that the, “law is perceived as impotent in the face of grave injustice, leading to an unacceptable erosion of faith in the justice delivery system and rule of law”. He added, like his predecessors, that in the last 60 years the Government has been contemplating structural changes aimed at ensuring the credibility and citizen-friendly judicial process.
The Maoists have been identified as the biggest internal security threat to India by the Prime Minister. Yet there is no specific law to deal with them or with the problem of terrorism. Action is taken against the accused under the laws of 1863, which are not only inadequate but irrelevant to the current state of affairs.
Then Union Minister for Home Affair P Chidambram had said on October 25, 2009, that “India which is facing serious terror and Naxal threats has an ill-equipped police machinery, especially at its lower ranks…Police system is outdated. Police are ill-trained, ill-equipped and ill-paid…The police constable, who works for 12 to 14 hours a day throughout the year is the most abused part of the machinery… Everyone believes that the constable can be bullied or cajoled or bribed... he is the most reviled public servant…Self-esteem of average policeman is very low… And this average police constable is a frontline force for the internal security.”
Chidambaram also added that the constable lives in a “very different cultural milieu and brings his culture to the workplace”. He remarked that there was a very “feeble attempt to improve his behaviour or attitude”.
However, these pronouncements have remained, at best, pious wishes. The Government knows the way but only the smallest possible number walk it.