Police Reforms an Urgent Imperative





The ghastly murder of a dentist in Delhi by a mob last week underscores the need for urgent police reforms, including increasing staff strength, modernising its methods, improving its pay and transforming its orientation. Policing must be preemptive, responsive and prompt. The police force must be seen as an integral part of the community and not an external imposition that is aligned to the local political heavyweights.This requires increasing the number of policemen on the beat, who should be well versed with the community , and whom the community will trust to act with fairness.India's police force is woefully understaffed with one policeman for 732 persons; the ratio goes up to one policeman for 1,298 and 1,282 persons in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, respectively . This is against the United Nations-recommended ratio of one policeman for 450 persons. Simulta neously , the police must be protected from undue influence and pressure from governments and politicians in the dis charge of their duties. Measures such as the separation of the investigation and law and order functions, as recommended by the Supreme Court's 2006 judgment, will help improve police efficiencies. Much of what it takes to bring accountability , equity and transparency to the Indian police system, governed by the Police Act of 1861, already exists in the form of assorted commission recommendations and the Supreme Court's 2006 judgment.
As the government works reforming the Code of Criminal Procedure to shift to a system of restorative justice, it must simultaneously ensure that the police force is both equipped and capable of making the transition. Without the requisite police reforms, this will be another incomplete effort to put in place a responsive and modern criminal justice system.
Source: Economic Times, 30-3-2016

A crime well reported is half-solved

The latest data from the National Crime Records Bureau show that it is time to change our understanding of felony and its registration by the police

With every passing year of writing on the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)’s crime data, it has become increasingly clear that what I am forced to do is essentially compare apples and oranges, and then make a normative call based on that comparison. This is not the much-maligned NCRB’s fault, but calls for a change in our understanding of crime and its registration by the police.

This year, I found that in both absolute and population proportionate terms, Delhi was now the crime and rape capital of India. However, I have come to the conclusion that the spike that Delhi saw in 2013 is almost certainly a direct result of the December 2012 gang rape and the widespread protests that followed, which began an impassioned and long overdue conversation around sexual violence in the capital. From conversations with women’s rights activists and the police, I have learnt that now more women come forward to complain and the police are less likely to turn complainants away.

Other cities may not have experienced the same change in the same way. The Shakti Mills gang rape took place in Mumbai nearly a year after the Delhi incident. After the complainant went to the police, another victim came forward a few days later; she had been raped, she said, by the same gang just weeks before the Shakti Mills incident, but did not have the courage to approach the police.

In Chennai in December 2014, a man posing as a policeman allegedly raped a girl who was at a beach with a male friend; not only did the crime attract far less media attention than sexual assault does in Delhi, the police and a leading newspaper indulged in the kind of slander against the complainant that has become all but impossible now in Delhi.

Police still apathetic

None of which is to assert that sexual crime doesn’t go unreported any more in Delhi. In July 2015, a young woman was stabbed to death in Delhi. Her family spoke later of the complete indifference of the police in pursuing her earlier repeated complaints against the same men who fatally attacked her. Further, increased reporting alone cannot explain Delhi’s elevated rate of sexual crime. In 1990, the number of reported rapes in Delhi and Mumbai were only as far apart as the difference in populations would predict. By 2000, the capital was recording three times as many rapes as Mumbai. The two cities can be said to have comparable levels of feminist activism and media interest, yet there was a substantial rise in the number of reported cases in Delhi.

Moreover, whether high rates of reported sexual assault should be seen directly as a proxy for the lack of women’s safety is debatable. While the city-wise break-up of reported rapes by the proximity of the accused to the complainant has not been released this year, in past years it was no different in Delhi than in other cities, and ranged between 95 and 100 per cent of all reported rapes. Similarly, while The Hindufound that the largest category of rape cases in Delhi, based on district court judgements, involved parental criminalisation of consenting runaway couples, a preliminary analysis for cities in Madhya Pradesh showed similar results.

What the activism around the December 2012 Delhi gang-rape is likely to have done is to nudge reported rape in Delhi closer to its real value, while the true numbers in other Indian cities are harder to estimate. In a working paper, economist Aashish Gupta compared the rates of reported rape (as per the NCRB) for 2005 with the rates of experienced rape as reported by women in a household sample survey to the National Family Health Survey. He found that just 5.8 per cent of rape by men other than husbands was reported to the police.

It is important here to place rape in the context of general crime. The rates of recorded crime in most Indian cities and States, quite frankly, defy belief. Uttar Pradesh recorded just over 10,000 cases of “grievous hurt” in 2014, while London recorded over 70,000 cases of “assault with injury offences” according to its police statistics for 2014-15. From people’s testimonies of police corruption and brutality, it seems entirely conceivable that in large parts of the country, people — especially the poor — do not go to the police to register a complaint unless they absolutely have to. So it is likely that India’s murder rate is quite close to its true value, as would be the case with, say, auto theft, in which an FIR becomes essential; unsurprisingly, auto theft accounted for 42 per cent of all reported theft in 2014, and 6.5 per cent of all crime.

What about crimes against women — is there evidence that some States under-report more than others? In Mr. Gupta’s analysis, the numbers of reported rape by men other than husbands were too low at the State-level to make valid comparisons. However, when he looked at the State-wise spread of the actual incidence versus reporting of physical violence against women, he found that Delhi had consistently higher reporting and lower incidence of actual violence than other States while Bihar had low reporting rates and high actual incidence. Among larger States, both actual violence and under-reporting were higher in northern States with poor gender indicators than in southern States with better gender indicators, he found.

Should we then see high crime rates as a positive rather than a negative? Globally, countries with wide income disparities are four times more likely to be afflicted by violent crime than more equitable societies, and high levels of crime are both a major cause and a result of poverty and underdevelopment, says the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. However, this applies only to states in which full registration is the norm, and that is almost certainly not the case for most Indian States.

In 2014, the highest crime rates in India were in Delhi and Kerala. People often use Kerala’s high rates of reported crime, particularly for women, to criticise the State, former State police chief Jacob Punnoose said recently. “But what this shows is that with more female police recruitment, more women felt confident to approach the police. We should celebrate this,” he said. Not all crime is under-reported equally, Mr. Punnoose cautioned. “I would not say that I will celebrate an increase in the numbers of all crimes — auto theft or murder for example. But if the police of a State is able to significantly increase the registration of crimes in which grievous physical injury does not take place, I will congratulate that police commissioner.”

Registration of crime is the culmination of multiple realities — the existence of crime, the empowerment of an individual to report it, and the willingness of the police to register it. With the second and third parts so sorely lacking in most of India, perhaps it’s time to stop reducing our analysis of the NCRB data to only the existence of crime.

rukmini.shrinivasan@thehindu.co.in

Keywords: National Crime Records Bureau, December 2012 gang rape, Shakti Mills gang rape, crime rates in India, sexual assault

Police Reformer Of India

Former Chief Justice of India Y.K. Sabharwal’s passing would be mourned, among others, by the country’s police fraternity. There are few people who really empathise with the police, understand its problems, and appreciate the need to improve its working conditions. Justice Sabharwal was one such person. He knew the police had to be insulated from extraneous pressures to be able to enforce the rule of law, and that without a professional police, the country could not have a stable democracy or achieve sustained economic progress.

The petition for police reforms had been filed in 1996. It got an initial push from Justice J.S. Verma, but after that, with the exception of Justice S.P. Bharucha, no other judge took significant interest in the matter. The case meandered for almost 10 years — until it was taken up by Justice Sabharwal. He decided to clinch the issue. In a historic judgment delivered on September 22, 2006, Justice Sabharwal recorded that “having regard to (i) the gravity of the problem; (ii) the urgent need for preservation and strengthening of rule of law; (iii) pendency of even this petition for last over 10 years; (iv) the fact that various commissions and committees have made recommendations on similar lines for introducing reforms in the police set-up in the country; and (v) total uncertainty as to when police reforms would be introduced, we think that there cannot be any further wait, and the stage has come for issue of appropriate directions for immediate compliance so as to be operative till such time a new model police act is prepared by the Central government and/ or the state governments pass the requisite legislation.”

The court’s directions included setting up three institutions: state security commissions to insulate the state police from extraneous pressures; police establishment boards to give autonomy to the department in personnel matters; and police complaints authorities to ensure better accountability of the force. The court also laid down a procedure for appointment of the DGP and gave him a fixed tenure of two years, mandated a two-year tenure for officers performing operational duties in the field, and gave directions for the separation of investigation from law and order in towns with a population of 10 lakh or more. The directions were to be implemented by December 31, 2006.

The judgment caused a huge flutter. The states never expected such far-reaching directions. They mobilised the best lawyers to stall the reforms. Justice Sabharwal, however, held his ground. He chided the state governments/ UTs and even the Centre for not making any submissions during the argument stage that the suggestions of …

Reform Our Prisons





Tihar, in the heart of the national capital, exposes the rot in Indian jails

The National Human Rights Commission has begun to scruti nise Delhi's Tihar Jail following a series of reports in this newspaper, exposing lawlessness within the prison. Separately, the Supreme Court is hearing a writ petition on the appalling state of our prisons. The interest shown by these institutions provides an opportunity to decisively reform India's prison system, an area which has long faced neglect. The state of prisons is a measure of how civilised we are as a society and our record, unfortunately, leaves a lot to be desired. Indeed, we have even gone backwards.Tihar Jail, in the heart of the national capital, is a case in point.Once upon a time Tihar was a byword for prison reform, initiated by Kiran Bedi when she was inspector general of prisons. It included vipassana or meditation sessions, educational facilities, vocational activities, organisation of sports and games. But Tihar is a nightmare today , with rampant torture and sexual abuse of inmates by other inmates. Gangs run wild in the prison and crimes such as murders are plotted, both of those within and outside prison.
There is, therefore, an urgent need to look into and remedy the condition of our prisons. Even convicted prisoners have rights and cannot be entirely stripped of them. But what makes the tragedy even more heart-rending is that the majority of inmates in Indian prisons are not hardened and convicted criminals but undertrials. About 67% of India's prisoners are undertrials, compared with 20% in the US. The consequence in India is overcrowded, unhygienic prisons and a preponderance of young people charged with petty offences at the mercy of hardened criminals.
Thanks to its slowness and laxity , India's judicial system is the principal culprit here. Prison reforms, therefore, need to be a part of larger reforms which speed up and improve our criminal justice system. Current court orders and implementation of existing laws too can help in lowering the incidence of undertrials. Bail is the first line of defence here ­ courts have ruled that bail is to be seen as a rule and not an exception. Above all, India's prison system needs to ensure that it punishes criminals appropriately while giving them a chance to reform and learn new skills, rather than produce more criminals who are then let loose into society .

10 unnatural deaths occur in Indian jails every month

TIMES INSIGHT GROUP





The murder of an inmate in Tihar is no isolated incident, with official data showing that there were 115 “unnatural deaths“ in India's jails in 2013, the latest year for which data is available from the National Crime Records Bureau. That's about 10 unnatural deaths every month.At 5.9 unnatural deaths per 10,000 inmates, Delhi's jails clock more than twice the national rate of 2.8 per 10,000 inmates. Whether this has anything to do with Delhi jails having over twice as many inmates as they are supposed to hold, against a national average of 118% occupancy, is a moot question.
The NCRB's prison statistics in India 2013 shows that of the 115 deaths due to unnatural causes, more than half (70) were officially classified as suicides, 12 were attributed to “assault by outside elements“ and eight to murders by inmates.With one execution and one death due to firing, the causes of deaths of 23 “others“ have not been spelt out.
The highest rates of unnatural deaths (per thousand inmates) were in Jammu & Kashmir, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Delhi and Rajasthan in that order. The lowest rates among bigger states were in undivided Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Maharashtra and Jharkhand. The prison statistics also show that barring Chhattisgarh, a state severely affected by Maoist insurgency , Delhi had by far the most overcrowded jails in the country . Chhattisgarh had 15,840 inmates in its jails which had a capaci ty of just 6,070, thus recording an `occupancy rate' of 261%. Delhi's 13,552 inmates were stuffed into jails meant to hold 6,250 people, an occupancy rate of 217%.The national average occupancy rate was about 118%, which shows that while jails as a rule are overcrowded in India, Delhi's prisons are almost twice as congested as the average.

Amending the law against corruption

Not all the amendments to the Prevention of Corruption Act cleared by the Union Cabinet last week inspire public confidence or meet the objective of filling gaps in domestic anti-corruption law. In significant respects, the proposals fall short of public expectations and fail to address key issues in corruption jurisprudence. In its Bill introduced in the Rajya Sabha in 2013, the UPA government proposed to extend the protection of prior sanction for prosecuting public servants to former officials. The ostensible reason was that Section 197 of the Code of Criminal Procedure protected retired officials, while the PCA covered only serving officials. The government wants to stick to this change, when it would have been more advisable to bring the CrPC in consonance with the PCA. The sanction provision ought to have been restricted to prosecutions that flow from deviations from public policy, laws and regulations. Possessing unexplained assets, being caught red-handed while taking a bribe and misappropriating property cannot be actions in the course of official functions, and in such cases prior sanction cannot be required. The Bill drops the protection accorded to bribe-givers if they depose during trial, thereby deterring those coerced into giving a bribe from subsequently testifying against offenders. A distinction ought to have been made between collusive bribery and bribery under coercion.

The expanded provision relating to bribery and enhanced jail terms are positive developments, but the idea of subsuming most offences now covered under ‘criminal misconduct’ into a single clause should be revisited, lest some form of abuse of office slips through the net. Another worrisome aspect is the change made to the offence of possessing ‘disproportionate assets’. When the 2013 Bill used the term ‘intentional enrichment’, it seemed as though the prosecution needed to prove the possession of unexplained assets as well as the ‘intention’ to enrich oneself. The government now says “possession of disproportionate assets” will be proof of “such illicit enrichment”. It is to be hoped that this will mean the prosecution need not prove the intention to amass wealth, as such an additional requirement would allow those in possession of ill-gotten wealth to escape the law. The proposed amendments have positive aspects too. They seek to curb commercial entities from offering inducements to public servants and provide for punishments to individuals in charge of such entities. The trial court itself can now deal with the process of attachment of property instead of the district court. Fixing a time frame for grant of sanction and completion of trial is a welcome feature. A crucial opportunity to overhaul the anti-corruption law should not be lost through imperfect amendments.

Keywords: Anti-corruption Act, Prevention of Corruption Act

38,000 cyber fraud cases reported in 4 yrs: Govt

New Delhi: TNN





New Delhi: As cyber fraud cases involving Rs 497 crore have been reported by the RBI and CBI in the last four years, telecom and in lecom and information technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told Lok Sabha on Wednesday .Several cyber attack techniques are used in engineering these crimes and are normally reported as ATM debit card, credit card, internet banking frauds, Prasad said in a written reply. “As per information provided by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), 10,048, 8,765, 9,500 and 9,362 cyber fraud cases and losses of Rs 38 crore, Rs 67 crore, Rs 78 crore and Rs 60 crore have been reported to the RBI during 2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14 and April-December 2014, respectively ,“ he said.
In a separate reply , he said: “CBI has also registered 46 cases (14 Preliminary Enquiries) and 32 RCs (Regular Cases) relating to cyber crime in various parts of the country during the last few years that is 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 (till date).“ In these cases 34 persons have been arrested, he said. “An amount of Rs 90 crore, Rs 158 crore and Rs 6 crore was involved in these cases registered during the year 2012, 2013 and 2014, respectively ,“ Prasad added.

Perception of corruption in India improves marginally

India ranks 85 among 178 countries on the global Corruption Perception Index this year.

India has marginally improved its ranking on the global Corruption Perception Index this year, on the back of prosecutions of high-level officials and hope that the new leadership will reduce corruption, Transparency International said on Wednesday morning.

India’s two-point improvement (on a total possible score of 100) did not count as a “significant change” unlike that in countries like Egypt, Jordan and Afghanistan. With a score of 36, India now ranks 85 among 178 countries, with countries like Sri Lanka, Thailand and Burkina Faso for company. Denmark ranks first, as it did in 2013, while Somalia and North Korea share the bottom spot. India is ranked better than all its South Asian neighbours except Bhutan.

The composite index is made up of a combination of surveys and assessments of public sector corruption by international agencies including the World Bank and the World Economic Forum. Of the nine surveys and assessments used for India, most relied on expert opinion on the extent of corruption and the rule of law and only one polled the general public.

“The two point increase reflects the prosecution of high level politicians and civil servants associated with the 2G and coal block allocations, a sign that institutions are robust in establishing rule of law and sanctioning the corrupt,” Santhosh Srinivasan, Research Coordinator at Transparency International, explained in an email to The Hindu. “In addition, the new leadership appears to have a strong anti-corruption drive, thereby creating further hope for a reduction in the levels of corruption as faced by ordinary people and businesses alike in the country,” Mr. Srinivasan said.

For this to go beyond rhetoric, further concrete steps and actions were needed including the enactment of all key pending anti-corruption bills, the setting up of a Lokpal mechanism, curbing illicit financial flows and deepening people’s access to information, Mr. Srinivasan said.

Economic growth did not necessarily reduce corruption, Transparency International said, pointing to countries like China whose corruption perception had worsened during a high growth period.

Dec 02 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

Deadly duplication

Bikram Vohra





The great Indian paper chase would melt even the Don like ice cream in the sun

Swift code, Micr number, IFSC number, postal address and a letter from the governor attesting to your character before you can even pay your taxes. India's love affair with the paper chase continues unabated and sometimes you wonder how it all gets done and where is the need for so much duplication.You are watching this movie and this Bruce Willis type guy says in a Don Corleone voice, “Get twenty million transferred now to my other account.“ There is a whirr sound and zipadoodee, the 20 mil has gone to where the Don wanted it to go. No one wants to take him on, right, like who needs a horse's head in the bed. Imagine Bruce `the don' Willis living here and going through the procedures as they are.
I want to move five million to my offshore account now, do it. Certainly Sir, but first i need some details, what is your Micr number? What did you say? Your Micr number and your Aadhaar card number and your PAN card number and also the swift code for the bank.
Do you know who i am? Yessir but rules are rules, we cannot change them for anyone and oh please, we also need your bank's IFSC number. I practically own the bank. Sir is joking. No, i am not, i also destroy people for breakfast. We are a nationalised bank, Sir, you cannot own it. Sound of gnashing teeth.
...And we cannot transfer money without the Swift code, RBI rules, Sir. But i need the money transferred now, this moment, like they show in the movies. Move it. Pronto. Like yesterday.
We cannot do that, Sir, we are bound by rules and we also need to inform you Sir that we have a new offer for valued clients, if you invest in our `Savdhan' scheme you will get 7.5% annual interest and it is tax free and you get a platinum credit card and dinner for four in a five star restaurant but alcohol beverages are separate... There is a sobbing sound from the other side. Mr Willis is melting like ice cream in the sun.
And we also have a holiday home option where you engage in time sharing...Stop,stop, stop... How long will it take to get my money? Have you filled in form B22 and attached a copy of your returns plus two copies of an affidavit signed by a gazetted officer showing you are a citizen of the country and four photos with a white background?
Over the line there is a sound of a pistol shot. The don is dead. Do you blame Mr Willis?

Jun 23 2014 : Mirror (Pune)

FORENSICS DO NOT LIE - `Prevent crime by becoming aware of how it takes place'

Mubarak.Ansari @timesgroup.com TWEET @ThePuneMirror





A lecture on forensic science revealed how crucial it is in modern day crime detection and the emerging trend of preventive forensics

Crime can be prevented if more people are aware of how it takes place -this was the biggest take away from a lecture on forensic science on Saturday, as Dr Rukmani Krishnamurthy, chairman of Helik Advisory Limited, a forensic and allied science organisaiton based in Mumbai, harped on the application of forensic science in the prevention of crime.Krishnamurthy, a former director of the Directorate of Forensic Science Labs, Maharashtra, was in the city to deliver a lecture on `Use of forensic science to tackle hi-tech crimes' at the Centre for Police Research (CPR) on Pashan Road.
Citing the intended use of liquid explosives in the foiled 2006 terror attack at the Heathrow Airport in London, she said that forensics can help in finding such substances which if people are made aware of, more such incidents can be foiled.
“A new trend of preventive forensic is emerging where one knows about an impending terror attack or other crime from the analysis of tests like narco analysis tests. The brain, which can mastermind the most heinous of crimes, can also be `stimulated' to give away criminal intent by confronting it with stimuli such as a picture, word, or phrase associated with information that may be stored in the brain,“ she said.
On the role of forensic evidence in nabbing the guilty, she said, “In serious offences like rape, DNA report can pin point the culprit(s) and reveal how many persons were involved in a case of gangrape.“ Forensic evidence is admissible in a court of law, she informed the audience, which comprised of serving and retired officers.
“When the court has to form an opinion upon a point of foreign law, the identity of hand writing or fingerimpressions, opinions of experts are relevant. Further, Section 293 of the CrPC says government scientific experts may be used as evidence,“ she said.
Talking about the crime scene, she added, “Evidence as tiny as a strand of hair or drop of oil often play a crucial role in solving cases.“
Additional DGP S P Yadav, who is the chief of Maharashtra Criminal Investigation Department (CID), said, “Collection of forensic evidence is need of the hour.“ Adding that detection methods have changed, he said, “Extracting a confession is not enough now. Judges take forensic evidence more seriously, as conviction rate increases with the availability of evidence.“ CPR managing director A V Krishnan, a former IPS officer, said that forensic science raises the credibility of the convict being the guilty.
Police Inspector B B Khaira, who is the admin and accounts manager at CPR, said, “This lecture was the 17th lecture as part of a lecture series, which began in April 2011, aimed at promoting discussion among the intelligentsia on socially relevant issues.“