Can't Just Slip In Your Law

It came like a bolt from the blue. Very suddenly, one fine day, the home department of the government of Maharashtra published on its website a draft bill called the Maharashtra Protection of Internal Security Act 2016. The bill promised to deal with challenges posed by terrorism, insurgency and caste violence, all in one legislation, without differentiating between the nature of the threats from each. Even the police establishment was taken by surprise, though the original idea of drafting the law was initiated by the director-general of police himself!

Why was the police establishment taken aback? The reason was that the DGP had sent the proposal in 2014—before the present government had assumed office—and without any further consultation with the originators of the proposal, the mandarins of the home department changed and sla­shed the draft retaining only the original title of the bill and a few sections of law that had been proposed.The rest was totally diluted and twisted out of shape.

Informal inquiries showed that the bureaucracy had based its thinking on a similar Act in the state of Andhra Pradesh, but the committee formed by Sanjeev Dayal, then DGP of the Maharashtra state, and comprising some stalwart officers of unquestioned credentials like Sadanand Date, Atul Kulkarni and Dr K. Venkatesan, had also drafted their proposals after taking into consideration the Andhra law. The police officers wanted to go beyond the provisions of the Andhra law with a holistic approach to several issues which were troubling them. The home department had killed the essence of those proposals.

For example, one of the recommendations the police officers had made, in order to build understanding bet­ween communities, particularly Hindus and Muslims, was that the housing department of the government should formulate a policy not to build and sell cheap housing to the public, except if all communities are represented in a particular building and locality. In one sense, this was a revolutionary proposal, which required inputs from the political leadership. As can be deduced from the chief minister’s statement that he had not studied the Act, no politicians were consulted. But the draft was published by the home department of which he was the head.

In my own building, where twenty retired IPS off­icers reside, the government had given the land on lease on the strict stipulation that twenty per cent of the members of the housing society should belong to the SC-ST category. Not only did we have four such members, but also one Muslim and one Christian (that is me) and the Hindus hailed from different parts of the country and belonged to different castes. As a res­ult, there is a fraternal feeling among us which has contributed to a greater understanding of the cultures and mores of the different regions and people that constitute this great country.

If a similar policy decision was taken by the housing department for government housing, it would have contributed greatly to reduce communal feelings and misunderstandings that now provide the tinder-box, which often threatens to exp­lode! Out-of-the-box solutions to mitigate such tensions are constantly put forth by pol­ice officers, who have to deal with riots and disturbances.

It was with the intention of getting other government departments to contribute their ideas to the solution of ticklish problems, like alienation of the minority community, that the committee under the chairmanship of DGP Sanjeev Dayal was constituted. Naxal violence in the Gadchiroli district bordering Andhra, the sporadic acts of terrorism, as reported during 26/11 and the blasts in suburban trains and the perpetual communal tensions that threatened the peace of this commercial hub of the country, prompted a thinking policeman like Dayal to take the initiative that he did. It was really sad that the intent was not clearly defined in the government’s draft Bill and instead it was made out that the State wanted to bestow more and more sweeping powers on the executive and the police without the required accountability.

Organisations like the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), the Police Reforms Watch and other NGOs were justifiably alarmed. They questioned both the necessity and the justification for ano­ther new internal security law, the need of bringing every kind of threat under one omnibus law, the reliance of the Bill on ‘dangerously vague’ definitions which gave ‘sweeping’ discretionary powers to the police and the absence of checks in case of the abuse of such powers. Faced by the vehemence and extent of the protests, the chief minister very wisely decided to withdraw the draft and send it back to the drawing board for reconsideration.

Some of the provisions of the draft Bill are certainly relevant and useful as they provide far better security measures by actors beyond the pale of the government machinery and demand a security audit to ensure that everybody besides the police gets involved in security concerns. For INS­tance, private companies that build and operate minor ports on the eastern and western coasts of India are to install CCTV cameras and adopt other security measures going by the proposed law to guard against unexpected terrorist attacks.

What went wrong, however, with the entire exercise was that it was not felt that the opposition should be consulted, the general public was not educated prior to the publication of the draft Bill and even the top brass of the police, which had initiated the original draft, was ent­irely left out of the decision- making process. In short, everything that should have been done to explain the int­ent and the content of a Bill as complex as this one, was not at all attempted and this led to the inevitable upr­oar when the draft came out.

If the government wants to plug holes in its security laws, it should involve a much larger constituency in the exercise and rely more on domain knowledge as opposed to the generalist’s superior intellect.

Ab initio, the government should decide whether the lacunae in the existing laws can be plugged by relevant amendments and also whether the involvement of other government departments, such as the housing, minor ports and education departments, can be ens­ured by appropriate administrative orders, which could be enforced strictly by issue of government resolutions. All doubts can be resolved if wider consultations are held with all stake-holders, which would include the opposition and even some respected NGOs with good credentials who are connected to and well versed with the subject of the law.

The DGP’s concerns are very genuine and relevant and his recommendations on community policing and institutional support to police personnel on duty need the attention of the political leadership. But these have not been included in the draft Bill. They have been left to the good sense and generosity of the political leadership which is rarely discernible.

Slide Show

During the Punjab insurgency in the eighties, Julio Ribiero was the director general of the Punjab police. In 1987, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan for his services. Ribiero has survived two assasination attempts. The first one was made in 1986 inside the headquarters of the Punjab police and the other was made in Bucharest in 1991, when Ribiero was serving as ambassador to Romania. He was wounded in both the attempts.