[This article was originally published on 3 November 2006 with the title of “Will Kiran Bedi be made the next Delhi Police Commissioner?”. Updated in 2012.]
The other day somebody asked me about my comments in respect of the recent order passed by the Supreme Court [Prakash Singh v. Union of India, (2006) 8 SCC 1] for improvements in the police system which, inter alia, included a provision for constituting Committees for the purpose of considering appointments / transfers to important positions in the police department. My simple answer was that I’ll judge the success of the new system on the touchstone of whether Kiran Bedi would or could be appointed as the next Delhi Police Commissioner by the newly constituted Committee for Delhi state (if you so wish, you may replace “Delhi” with some other state and “Kiran Bedi” with some competent and no-nonsense officer of that state; but, beware of many fake “high-profile” brand names with carefully-crafted images through media-management).
Disclosure: I do not hold any brief for Kiran Bedi. But, yes, I do hold a brief for my poor country.
Disclaimer: This writing is with no malice towards one and all. In particular, there is no malice against the incumbent officers or other potential candidates for the important police posts. “Kiran Bedi” name is used here as an icon of a competent officer.
Apologies: My public apologies are due to Kiran Bedi for using her name without her permission. She being a well-known public figure, I have presumed that her “right of privacy” will not preclude me from using her name in this non-derogatory manner.
We have seen for long as to how Committees work in this country. “Committee” is a ploy used by the people in power to achieve the miracle of doing “indirectly” what cannot be done “directly” (i.e., get formal recommendations from a Committee in respect of the otherwise indigestible facts to put them on a higher pedestal of having come from so-and-so high-level Committee). “Committees” are also useful for buying time when some important decision is to be avoided or when the attention of the public is to be diverted for the time being (“yes, we have referred the matter to a high-powered Committee, so wait for the report of the Committee”; what is not told is that the Committee will seek extensions after extensions for submitting its report). “Committees” can also be appointed for scrutinising the reports of the earlier Committees, or for giving further opinion on the reports of such earlier Committees. “Committees” are also useful tools for scuttling an investigation or enquiry done by some investigating agency or by some earlier unfriendly Committee (remember the latest episode of Justice U. C. Banerjee Committee set up by the Railways Ministry when a Commission set up by the Gujarat government was already conducting an inquiry; and the Gujarat High Court recently held that the setting up of the second panel was illegal). In fact, the various uses to which Committees can be put, may well itself have to be examined by some high-powered Committee to prepare an exhaustive list of all imaginative objectives.
We have a Selection Committee in Cricket which acts as a proxy to the BCCI. Because the BCCI does not want to get the blame of being partisan or of practising nepotism or favouritism in the selection of players for the “Team India”, therefore it has decided to constitute a Selection Committee from time to time. But how is the Selection Committee itself selected and by whom and in what manner? Well, the answer lies in the oft-repeated allegations of bribes, favouritism, regionalism, nepotism, and many other “isms”.
Moral of the story: The selection process of the selection committee itself is also important. So is the question of transparency.
We have the privilege of having seen the reports of a large number of Committees and Commissions. Barring a few honourable exceptions, the reports are usually on the side of their mandate (oh yes, we recently had one such exception in the report of Justice S. Narayan Commission in the Delhi-Agra Taj Expressway matter which gave a timely report and also a report which was against what was supposed to be its mandate). The exercise is usually to justify the causes or the reasons for which the Committee was constituted. No doubt, many, if not most, of the reports of the Committees are shown the way to the dust-bins with or without filing of ATR (action taken report), and with or without making them public, after the purpose for which they had been constituted has been served.
It goes without saying that recommendations of most of such Committees may not even engage the attention of those who constituted them, leave alone implementing them. There are ways of scuttling them, if needed, by splitting the hair in the ATRs. And, if it is not possible to scuttle an unfavourable recommendation of a committee, simply delay its implementation – after all “red-tapism” is our favourite manner of inflicting unnatural death to a live matter without formally “killing” it. How to delay? Well, we shall have another Committee to look into the recommendations of the….
The charm of appointing Committees is so much that at the last count we have some 63 Group of Ministers or Cabinet Committees in the Union Government Cabinet when the strength of the latter itself is about 80.
Coming back to the question of the Selection Committees to be appointed under the recent order of the Supreme Court for appointments / transfers to higher-level police posts, I feel that we’ll have to judge the effectiveness of the new system by the quality of the officers selected to (wo)man the higher-level posts. For example, if such a Committee can select an officer such as Kiran Bedi for the post of Delhi Police Commissioner, and ensure that she gets the full tenure in that post, then the new system can perhaps be called a success.
They may say, BPR&D (Bureau of Police Research and Development) is a very important department and therefore Kiran Bedi is required to continue heading that agency; well, that may be a way of depriving the public of a competent officer in the post which really matters. With due respect to the agency called BPR&D, it may be important or may even be very important but it cannot be more important than the post of the Police Commissioner of Delhi insofar as the people of Delhi are concerned. What usually happens to the reports or research reports of the BPR&D is anybody’s guess. Remember what happened to the report of the National Police Commission which is gathering dust for last about 26 years? But, the post of the Police Commissioner in a city like Delhi concerns the lives of one crore plus people on a day-to-day basis. One has to see to believe as to how much difference a strong leader can make when appointed in the top post. An efficient officer in number two or number three position may not make much of a difference if the number one position is occupied by a pliable officer. It is the topmost post which is to be occupied by a (wo)man whose spinal cord is stiff and cannot bend. We do not want an officer whose body is a gymnastic body which can bend in any direction as per the dictates or even the slightest indications of some other authority wielding a remote control. We want a (wo)man with a body and the mind of steel. The steel should also be the one which is used for making something like the railway tracks, i.e., which will not bend even when a heavy train runs over it. We do not want the flexible steel which is used for making coils or bendable or foldable sheets. Once it is such pure solid steel, it does not matter whether it is made by Arcelor-Mittal or Tata-Corus (did you say SAIL also? Sorry, I am “smelling” some Chemical-n-Steel Ministry… No-no, no political interference please!).
Delhi had seen Kiran Bedi in action during the Asian Games. Now the Commonwealth Games are fast approaching to be held in Delhi in 2010. Let the action be repeated again. Otherwise the whole world will “miss” the games and will watch the “mess”, which the Delhi city is in right now.
The question is whether such an officer would be selected by Selection Committee, if and when it comes into existence as per the orders of the Supreme Court? Of course, the first question should have been whether the Government will implement the aforesaid order of the Supreme Court, or will it play its favourite hide and seek game with the Supreme Court (which it often does in many matters nowadays) to somehow or the other try to scuttle the aforesaid order? Presuming that the order would be implemented, it remains to be seen as to how the whole process will evolve. What is the constitution of the Committees, who all are selected on such Committees, whether their recommendations are promptly and genuinely accepted or efforts are made to conduct a bypass-surgery on them by delay or otherwise, whether such Committees become a plaything in the hands of the political masters, whether the members of such Committees use the method of “you scratch my back and I scratch your back” which means “you support my candidate for one post and I support your candidate for the other post” and thereby distribute the available important posts to the favourite candidates of one another. In any case, the “final” choice of selecting the “final” candidate from the panel of officers “finally” recommended by the Selection Committee (after the matter travels several time to-and-fro between the Committee and the Government, like a tennis ball) rests with the political executive itself. How that is done is also a relevant question.
Moreover, the ultimate power of supervising the work of such police leaders and thereby the disciplinary control over their carrier prospects, rests with the political executive only. The job of a police leader is to walk bare-footed on a bumpy and uncertain road fully covered with sharpened objects (yes just like a road maintained by our municipalities before they are directed and forced by the concerned High Court in some PIL to fill up the potholes). You are required to deal with situations which are created suddenly by others without any prior notice. With ever-increasing tension in the society, with internal as well as external threats (but I am including ISI as an internal threat as it is active apparently only in India), the situation can suddenly become explosive. You’re always required to act like a fire-fighter with prompt response and with no time to think or plan on most occasions. Your acts and omissions may have serious consequences for the political executive as well, e.g., a serious law and order or a public order problem may result into overthrowing of a State Government (it is another matter that most of the law & order situations are by-products of the policies of such Government itself). The stakes being so high for the political executive, it is but natural that it would like to exercise immense control over such police leaders. And, the powers for such control do exist even today as the Supreme Court order does not cover them. Moreover, on the other hand, the police leaders will also naturally require the continued support of the political executive (the Committee may not be of much help when a written complaint of “proven misbehaviour” can be manufactured against the incumbent officer). Therefore, one is to watch and see whether their relationship gets converted into a marriage of mutual convenience at a later stage (yes, one does not have to bother now whether it is a formal marriage as “living together” is sufficient and a “formal marriage” is not necessary – courtesy the new Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, which came into existence just recently in October, 2006).
Ultimately, the working of such a police leader cannot be likened to the working of an independent body like the Election Commission, which has its independence guaranteed under the Constitution itself. In fact, there have been allegations into the working of the Election Commission also and against the selection process of its members, as seen recently itself (did you forget the donations to the “trusts” coming from the “official” funds of MPs of a single party?). So, what will happen to the…!
Well, all said and done, something is better than nothing. Let us not try to prejudge the results. The yardsticks are there, the touchstone is there. The touchstone will have to be used only after such Committees are constituted. We can tell the effectiveness of the new system after it comes into existence, as and when, and if, it does. Meanwhile, all a common citizen like me can do is to wish all the best for the new system.
Update (1 May 2012): Well, this article was written in 2006, and, we’re now in 2012. There is hardly any improvement in the system, as I had apprehended at that time. In fact, the aforesaid case of Prakash Singh v. Union of India, (2006) 8 SCC 1 is yet to be implemented fully. This case is now being heard again in the Supreme Court for past more than two years (though for the stated purpose of its implementation). It may be pointed out that I had filed a PIL in the Supreme Court the name of an NGO (Lokniti Foundation) in December, 2010, for carrying out reforms in police recruitment for introducing an objective and transparent police recruitment process as suggested by the National Police Mission which has been set up on the instructions of the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh. This PIL [vide Writ Petition (Civil) No. 417 of 2010] is now tagged with the aforesaid case of Prakash Singh, and the two matters are being heard together in the Supreme Court. However, the last date on which these matters were heard, was in April, 2011, and for last more than one year, not even a single date has been given for hearing of these cases. So, the aforesaid police reform in the matter of selection of police chief continues to be more or less in limbo. Moreover, though the method of selection of police chief in various states has undergone some change, the net result appears to be a big zero, since we’re yet to see better police chiefs being selected and the politicking continues.
