Whither One Nation, One Police

Context: Several state governments have passed Police Acts that violate the spirit of Supreme Court orders on police reforms. Centre too has failed to legislate a model Act.

Issues with Policing in India

• One nation, many police acts:  In police matters, we are today confronted with a situation where every state is legislating a different Police Act.
  • An analysis of these Acts shows that the objective behind these laws is to give legislative cover to the existing arrangement and thereby circumvent the implementation of judicial directions.
  • Soon after the Supreme Court’s directions on police reforms, the Police Act Drafting Committee of the Ministry of Home Affairs, headed by Soli Sorabjee, came out with the Model Police Act, 2006. 
  • The Government of India should have enacted a law based on this Model Police Act.
• Judicial neglect: The Supreme Court has, for inexplicable reasons, not issued a contempt notice to any of the states for non-compliance with its directions on police reforms.
• Centre’s neglect: 
  • Article 252 of the Constitution gives Parliament the power to legislate for two or more States by consent, and such an Act shall apply to the consenting states and to any other states by which it is adopted through a resolution passed on that behalf by the House or, where there are two Houses, by each of the Houses of the legislature of that state.
  • The least that the Government of India could have done was to legislate for the UTs and then prevailed upon the states where its party was in power to pass similar legislation.

Conclusion: The best option would be for the central and state governments to respect each other’s turf in a spirit of cooperative federalism. If that does not happen, it would perhaps be necessary to have a fresh look at the distribution of powers in the seventh schedule of the Constitution.