Gujarat still against cop reforms

RELUCTANT REFORMER: States like Gujarat have ignored the Model Police Act, despite SC orders.

Ads by Google

ibnlive.com is on mobile now. Read news, watch videos
be a Citizen Journalist. Log on to m.ibnlive.com NOW!

Related Stories

• Ishrat Jahan killed in fake police encounter: probe

• Modi warns Opposition on encounter issue

• Vanzara in another fake encounter?

Photogallery

Find us on Facebook | Join IBNLive community

Stay ahead with G-Talk Buddy | Click now!

  

New Delhi: Three IPS officers are in the net for a fake encounter, all in the name of carrying out their boss's diktat.

And in the dusty files of North Bloc lie the answer to encounter cops and political patronage - a Model Police Act which states like Gujarat would rather ignore, despite Supreme Court's orders.

Gujarat says law and order is a state subject and therefore the order is against the federal structure of the Constitution.

It further states that creating a state security commission to insulate the police from politicians will create parallel structure with no accountability.

The Rajasthan Police goes a step ahead and says the giving more independence to the police is not possible as the police, due to its very nature, needs to be kept on a tight leash.

Says Chairman of the Police Act Drafting Committee, Soli Sorabjee, "These are specious arguments. They will have to come around.''

While most states have fallen in line and complied with the Apex Court's orders in some form or the other, some of the bigger states refuse to see the writing on the wall.

It's not just states like Gujarat and Rajasthan, but even UP and the Congress party-ruled Maharashtra, Home to Union Minister Shivraj Patil who are opposed to the act.

But just how much of a tight leash can politicians keep on the police is something that will be decided in a contempt petition coming up before the Supreme Court later this month.