The New Nation - Internet Edition

Razzak Raza

In Bangladesh the Police cannot choose their own fate. The vehicles they use in operation, the garments they wear as uniform, the weapons they use and all sorts of expenditures are controlled by the ministry which is dominated by non-police authority. The police in existing management cannot think of their good and bad. The serious type of proposal or an ordinary sort of correspondent by the IGP to the government could be scrutinised by an assistant or a senior assistant secretary. But it is not desirable that the chief of the Police Force with more than 120 thousand members cannot communicate with the government directly. This sort of time consuming red tape tradition is obsolete in the modern bureaucracy. So the status of the IGP or the chief of police should be raised up to a full fledge secretary so that he can communicate to the government at the quickest possible time.

The world is changing quickly and the police are to cope with every change. Police work is always of emergency nature and an emergency department must be freed from red tapism. So it is desirable that the police bosses must have the full management, administrative and financial powers.

The present police act made the police a subordinate service to the whole administration. As the police force of the colonial Bengal were raised only to meet the ends of revenue collection, and the Deputy Collectors or the District Commissioners were responsible for revenue collecting, the police force needed to be subordinate to them. But the situation has been changed; we are now an independent nation. Revenue collection is not our only goal.

As a welfare state we should spend our entire energy to promote the sense of security, guarantee the fundamental rights and freedom to our citizens. We must shake off the colonial legacy from our administration. The bureaucracy of 21st century must not allow any cadre of the civil service to be subordinate to the other. Individuals, as well as the whole of a particular service, should be responsible of their own works. Sub-ordination decreases the sense of responsibility. So, let the police be answerable to their conscience for their own doings. The police of an independent country must be allowed to discharge their duties independently. It is the laws of the land that alone will bridle the enforcement.

Some people wrongly construe the independence of police work to exercise the power of a judicial magistrate. But they should know that many duties of executive nature that a magistrate in Bangladesh does is done by the police officers in the western countries, especially in the United Kingdom. But they are not the judicial officers. The police must not perform the job of a judicial magistrate. They will do the job of a police officer. But discretional power must be conferred on the police officers, especially, on the senior police ranks.

By the Criminal Procedure Code, the government may confer a police officer of and above the rank of an Assistant Superintendent with the power of a magistrate. The objective of this conferring is to preserve the peace, prevent crime and to detect, apprehend and to detain offender in order to their being brought before a Magistrate, and to perform by the officer of any other duties imposed upon him by any law [Section 14(4), Cr.PC]. The section is self explanatory. That the power of a police officer is not judicial, one can easily understand from this section. Even under the existing Police Act-1861(section -5), the IGP possesses the power of a Magistrate First Class, but this power is not unfettered. He shall exercise those powers subject to such limitation as may, from time to time, be imposed by the Government.

The Metropolitan Police System terminates the role of the District Magistrate from its jurisdiction (section 4 of the DMP Ordinance). The Police Commissioners exercise some of the powers of a District Magistrate in their jurisdictions.

Magistrates may necessarily not be the judicial officers. The first ever Metropolitan Police Act passed by the British parliament in 1829 termed Police Commissioners as magistrates. Colonel Rowland and Robert Maine was the first Police Commissioner in the history of Metropolitan Police. They were magistrates Styled as Police Commissioners and hence were called the 'Police Magistrate.' Until the 1970s, the Commissioners of London Metropolitan Police were also the 'Justices of the Peace.'

In Bangladesh, the six metropolitan police (including the new SMP and BMP) forces are working well. Metropolitan Police are the modern form of police organisations. The core idea in the metropolitan police is to make police moveable up to the maximum. It is not desirable for the police functionary to be dependent upon the other executive organs of the government for small matters like controlling a mob or banning a procession for the greater benefit of the people.

According to the existing police act if the police think that a proposed public meeting or a procession should not be allowed to stage without imposing conditions by issuing a license, the police, then, will advice the organisers of such public meeting or procession to seek a license from the District Magistrate. If the promulgation of 144 in the district jurisdiction seems necessary, the police need to collect a notice from the District Magistrate that 'in view of the District Magistrate' public peace would be disturbed and thus gathering would be banned. Here, police are the first hand problem finder and the lone problem solver. But the order of 144 is promulgated by the District Magistrate. This is somewhat time-killing and becoming dependant on some one else who is not related to the police work.

The term 'general control and direction of such Magistrate' that is the discretion of the District Magistrate in police administration is super authoritative. For, without the direction of the District Magistrate the police can solve the problems concerning the law and order situations.

It is argued that the direction and authority of the District Magistrate is needed to maintain a cheek and balance of the police work. For, by virtue, the law imposes wide range of powers on the police. Let alone the Officer-in-Charge of a police station, the constable----- the lowest rank at the police hierarchy, can arrest a citizen without warrant. So, it is desirable that some one outside the police should do something to hold on the horses. But experiences and statistics tell us the different stories. The order of detention under the section 4(2) of the Special Power Act-1974 comes from the District Magistrate. But the proposal with necessary grounds is initiated by the Officer-in-Charge of the police station. It is the police who have to adduce the evidence and maintain the criminal records of the subject. The District Magistrate applies a little discretion except the passing the order. The discretion of the police is approved by the District Magistrate in to-to. The role of the District Magistrate is considered to be judicious. But the irony of fate is that in the rare cases the detention orders of the District Magistrate was declared legal by the Honorable High Court Division. Analysing the recent news papers' reports on how the detention orders are being declared null and void by the higher courts one can easily conclude that the orders of the District Magistrate were not so judicious as it is expected. That is, the District Magistrate will prove right if the police prove so. To avoid this legal complicacy, in the metropolitan police jurisdictions this authority is vested upon the commissioners and it is working far better.

The requisitioning of private vehicles is another non criminal police function. Police have to collect vehicles from the public on important occasions as well as for their day-to-day operations. This is not only that police use these vehicles for themselves. The police, rather, need to execute the requisition law for other people or for government agencies. But police have to face much non cooperation or super authoritative behaviour from the Deputy Commissioner's (DC) office. According to the requisition law, District Superintendent of Police cannot requisition a vehicle. It is the Deputy Commissioner who has the legal authority to do it. But, as the DC has no practical mechanism to implement it, the job, by default, falls on the police. Requisitioning of a vehicle is the nastiest part of a police sergeant's job. He is sure to be blamed for demanding bribe, misconduct and violation of human rights while performing this job. People at the prey of requisition process bother not to know the actual thing. They do not know that police is only carrying out an order in dire necessity. However, the Commissioner of Police of a metropolitan police is authorised to requisition of vehicles for a period not exceeding seven days under the Metropolitan Police Acts [Section 103 a (1) of DMP Ordinance].

A Police force of an independent country should not and must not be controlled by the law framed for the imperial colony. The master-servant relation is still at the root of the existing police act. Dependency on other organs of the government to perform the day-to day operations makes Bangladesh police sluggish and unmoved to human sufferings. The general expectation of the civil society is that the police should be accountable to the public, to the government though their own channels and to the court.

The central mechanism of controlling the police work should be whether the police are working in accordance with the law or not. There is no reason to believe that the police are above the law. On the contrary, the powerful police officers are subject to the same laws, as they are employed to enforce.