Human Rights and Role of Police

Introduction:

Police is one of the most important organisations in our country. They are the law enforcers and the real-life protectors of our liberties. They constitute the authority that helps us in times of crisis, threat, fraud, violence and crime. When a citizen does not know what to do or whom to approach, the police proposes to be one of the most approachable authorities in the country.  They are the most prominent representatives of the government. But with the amount of powers vested in the hands of the police, there need to be continuous checks to ensure that this power is not being misused or abused. This article deals with the powers of the police, rights of citizens against the police, the prominent cases of police brutality, the judicial interpretations in various cases related to the police and the suggested measures to deal with police brutality.

Human Rights are those norms and rights which every citizen of the world has. They are inalienable and are protected by both, municipal and international law. Human rights are the core of any egalitarian society. They are provided to each and every person regardless of their age, caste, religion, place of birth and skin colour.

International Stand Regarding Human Rights

United Nations Human Rights Council is the most prominent organisation that deals with the implementation of human rights and cases involving the violation of the same.

The UN promotes and ensures the provision of human rights. The list of human rights is listed in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Convent on Civil and Political Rights.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was passed by the UN General Assembly on 10^th December 1948. It contains the following important rights-

Article 3 of the UDHR- Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security.[1]

Article 5 of the UDHR- No one shall be subjected to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 9- No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Further, Article 10 lists the rights to a fair public hearing with an impartial tribunal. Article 11 provides the principle of “innocent until proven guilty” and gives the remedies for the charges against a person. It introduces the policy of a prospective approach to law.

Police in India

The main responsibility of the police is to maintain law and order in the country. The state governments have jurisdiction over the police. Their duties and responsibilities include enforcing the law, protecting human rights and liberties, preventing terrorist activities and investigating crimes.

In India, an accused is innocent till proven guilty so the burden of proving that the crime happened is imposed on the prosecution. Due to this adversarial system, the police take on to brutal methods like beating, torturing and threatening a person to discover key evidence. This leads to police brutality. Though the police are accountable to the political executive, it has been seen that many times it is the politicians themselves who use the police forces for immoral and political gains.

Few Instances of Police Brutality in India

1. Emergency

A national emergency was imposed on 25th June 1975 under the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. In the 19 months that it extended, the police tortured and humiliated citizens to the heights one cannot imagine. Vaikkom Gopakumar, a then RSS chief was a victim of police brutality during this period. The police assaulted him for 16 days, banging his head on a wall, dragging him through his private parts and making him run with his arms tied[2].

More than 2000 people throughout the country were tortured by the police in inhumane ways. More than 1.75 lakh refugees were arrested at the same time[3].

2. Colonial Purohit Case

Colonel Purohit was arrested on 5^th November 2008 for allegations of his involvement in the Malegaon blasts which killed 7 people. He was tortured in police custody by Col. R K Srivasvta, Hemant Karkare and Param Bir Singh led assault team[4].

Afterwards, he even wrote a 24-page long report to the National Human Rights Council explaining how he was tortured and beaten up by the police, left hanging for days with his body parts swollen. No action was taken against these perpetrators. Ironically, Param Bir Singh is now the Police Commissioner of Mumbai.

3. Custodial Deaths

1713 people died in police custody during 2019[5]. This amounts to almost 5 such deaths each day. Many of these deaths aren’t investigated with a majority of them being turned into cases of suicide, sickness and poor health.

The recent death of father and son P Jeyaraj and Fenix was one of the most heinous crimes India has faced since the 2012 gang rape. Their pants were found to be fully soaked with blood and were victims of horrific forms of brutality.

4. Brutality Towards Women

The Mathura rape case was a custodial rape that took place on 26^th March 2020. She was an Adivasi who was raped by 2 drunk policemen in the Desaigani police station in Maharashtra. The Supreme Court acquitted the accused in the case hearing on the grounds that there were no injury marks on Mathura and hence the sexual intercourse had full consent[6]. Similar cases include the Rameeza Bee case in Andhra Pradesh and the Maya Tyagi case in Uttar Pradesh.

There were huge public protests by women’s rights groups. These efforts led to amendments in the Indian rape law by the Criminal Law (Second Amendment) Act, 1983.

A major problem in proving custodial rapes is that these crimes take place in the police stations and therefore the authorities have a full scope of removing the evidence. Hence, a suggestion in such cases is that the burden of proving that the accused is innocent should lie with the defendant.

Rights of Prisoners in India

Article 14 of the Constitution provides the principle of equals to be treated as equals. Indian Constitution gives to its citizens 6 freedoms among which the right to move freely, right of freedom of residence, the right to freedom of profession cannot be enjoyed by the prisoners.

Article 20 of the Constitution lists several rights of the accused-

• No person shall be punished for the same offence more than once
• No law shall declare any action as illegal from a backdate
• No person shall be asked to give evidence against himself or herself (no one can be forced to self-incriminate)

Section 309 of the CrPC provided the right to a speedy trial.

Many rights have been evolved by judicial interpretations-

1. Handcuffing

In Prem Shankar Shukla v. Delhi Administration[7], the Supreme Courts held that handcuffing was a violation of Article 21 of the Constitution which provides the Right to Life and Personal Liberty. It stated that the handcuffing of a person for mere intimidation and public humiliation was an offence and that handcuffing should only be done if there is an apprehension of the accused to escape. It also gave the rules of an arrest.

2. Right to Remain Silent

Though the right to remain silent hasn’t been directly included in the Fundamental Rights, Article 21 provides the right against self-incrimination which by an interpretation by Supreme Court includes the right to remain silent.

3. Right against Torture

No law in India provides legislation against torture. However, the Supreme Courts in Francis Coralie Mulin vs. Union of India [8]stated that any torture which was not falling under any existing law and was imposed out of arbitrariness and non-reasonableness would be unconstitutional and a violation to Article 21.

4. Police Encounters

In People’s Union of Civil Liberties vs. the State of Maharashtra, the Supreme Court laid down 16-point guild lines as a procedure to be followed in cases of death in police encounters. These are-

• Any tip-off received by the police regarding any criminal activity must be recorded electronically or in writing. It need not include the specifics of the location or suspect.
• If the tip-off initiates the use of firearms leading to the death of a person, an FIR must be instantly filed to the court initiating the investigation.
• This investigation must be done by an independent team and has to fulfil minimum investigation requirements like identify the victim, preserve evidence etc.
• A Magisterial inquiry to all encounter deaths must be maintained and a report of the same must be sent to the Judicial Magistrate.
• The NHRC must be immediately informed about the encounter of death.
• Medical aid must be provided to the victim and his statement must be recorded by a Magistrate/Medical Officer with a certificate of fitness.
• The FIR, panchnamas, sketch, police entries must be sent to the court without any delay.
• After the completion of an investigation, a report must be sent to the Court ensuring speedy trial.
• The nearest kin of the criminal must be informed of his death at the earliest.
• Bi-annual statements of all encounter killings must be sent to the NHRC by DGPs by a fixed date and set format.
• If the police are found to be guilty of a fake encounter, action would be taken against him with concurrence to the IPC. The concerned officer will be suspended for that period of time.
• Compensation scheme as prescribed under Section 357-A of the CrPC will be provided to the dependents of the victim.
• Accordance with Article 20, the police officers will surrender their weapon for analysis.
• The accused police officer’s family will be sent an intimation offering legal aid to the officer.
• Officers involved in encounter killings will not be instantly awarded any awards to out of turn promotions.
• If the family of victim feels that proper procedure has not been followed, they may file a complaint to the Sessions Court judge who then can address the grievances raised.

All these guidelines were turned into law under Article 141 of the Constitution.

1. Right to Fair Investigation- In Babubhai vs. State of Gujrat[9] case the Supreme Court stated that delaying of investigation and interrogation by the authorities is against the constitutional right of the accused. And hence, each and every accused has the right to a fair trial and fair investigation.
2. Arrest- The Constitution even provides certain rights to a person at the time of arrest under Article 22-
3. Rights to know the grounds of arrest
4. Right to be produced before a District Magistrate within 24 hours of arrest- It is illegal for the police to keep a person in custody after 24 hours of the arrest.
5. Right to be provided with a public defence lawyer

Suggested Measures

To bring down torture during any police interrogation, we need a stricter set of rules. Each and every person should be made aware of his/her rights at the time of the arrest. The NHRC should be given powers to not only suggest but enact measures for human right violations.

 The recommendations made by various international organisations need to be taken into consideration by the Indian Government. The reports were given by various law commissions namely, the 12th Law Commission report (1989) related to women in custody and the 16^th law report related to laws regarding arrested should be looked and acted upon by the central government.

The UN Convention against Torture which India signed in 1997 has yet to be ratified. The NHRC and Supreme Court have suggested numerous times for the parliament to act upon the same but no efforts have been made so far. This may be due to the increasing political influence in police activities and the refusal of politicians to do away with torture as a means of obtaining evidence.

Conclusion

Despite the enactment of so many provisions, we still find that the use of brutality by police hasn’t come down. There has been indiscriminate of lathis and tear gas shells by police over the years. We need strict legislation which can punish the people in power to ensure justice. An ordinary citizen now feels fearful to reach out to a police station for help. We need a better implementation of rules and development of policies that will punish all the members of the society equally with no favouritism for one powerful section. It needs to be publicly promulgated that police cannot do anything and everything up to their whims and fancies and the people have certain basic rights which cannot be violated under any giver circumstance. The police need to be held accountable. Human rights of people must be guaranteed.

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References:

[1] International Convent on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights https://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Pages/Language.aspx?LangID=eng

[2] Indus Scrolls Bureau, 31^st August 2019, https://indusscrolls.com/vaikom-gopakumar-the-face-of-anti-emergency-fight-in-kerala-is-no-more/

[3] New Indian Express, 25^th June 2019, https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/kerala/2019/jun/25/faces-of-emergency-keralas-political-prisoners-recall-darkest-chapter-of-indian-history-1994827.html

[4] PGurus, June 14, 2018, pgurus.com/shocking-letter-by-colonel-purohit-to-human-rights-commission-exposes-how-he-was-tortured-for-admitting-crimes/

[5] The Hindu, 17^th June 2020, https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/five-custodial-deaths-in-india-daily-says-report/article31928611.ece

[6] Tuka Ram And Anr vs State Of Maharashtra on 15 September, 1978, https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1092711/

[7] Prem Shankar Shukla v. Delhi Administration ,1980 AIR 1535, https://indiankanoon.org/doc/853252/

[8]  Francis Coralie Mulin vs. Union of India,1981 AIR 746, https://indiankanoon.org/doc/78536/

[9] Babubhai vs State Of Gujarat & Ors on 26 August, 2010, https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1164619/