LAHORE: The Punjab police’s decision to allow station house officers (SHOs) to exercise their right to arrest and grant bail to the accused in bailable and non-bailable offences under century-old rules has drawn mixed response from police officers.

Policemen seemed divided over accepting the standing order circulated by Punjab Inspector General of Police (IGP) Amjad Javed Saleemi in this regard. Some of them feared that the measure would open floodgates for corruption at the police station level due to, among other reasons, faulty supervisory policies.

Many officers, however, supported the move, saying the department must trust its senior command as well as lower rank police officers by implementing the order in letter and spirit with certain administrative arrangements to avoid its misuse. Some police officers suggested the IGP maintain check and balance over the SHOs to avoid repercussions. They suggested the IGP also define a role of the district police officers or divisional superintendents of police instead giving a free hand to the SHOs.

Dawn spoke to several police officers of various ranks for comment on the IGP’s order. A deputy superintendent of police (DSP) supported the decision, saying sections 169/496/497 of the CrPC of 1898 provided clear scope for an SHO and investigation officer, but the courts had curtailed this right a few decades ago.

“It may have some repercussions, but I personally believe that police have more checks available for rightful exercise of the powers vested in them under rules,” he added.

A senior superintendent of police (SSP) held the senior command responsible for the abandoning of exercise of the rules in question. “The law and rules are laid out in the sections above, but unfortunately senior officers restricted SHOs/IOs from implementing these rules in the garb of corruption through standing orders (written or verbal),” he alleged.

He further said that some senior officers mostly dictated the investigation officers/SHOs in all cases due to vested interests. Even in lodging of first information reports, senior officers dictated their juniors, and at the end the juniors were blamed by the media, courts and public, he concluded.

A deputy inspector general (DIG) said that these powers had been vested in the police under law and the courts gradually grabbed them after police officers had stopped using them. “However, the judiciary has done a good job by returning these powers to police by shifting a huge responsibility on the senior police command,” he maintained.

Since there were high chances of misuse of these powers, the immediate senior command must ensure their safe utility. He also said that the decision to delegate powers to the SHOs will make life of innocent suspects a lot easier.

Another SSP-ranked officer said it would actually be difficult to exercise these rights at police stations due to a “trust deficit” between the senior command and their juniors. No SHO would think of declaring anyone innocent on his own because no senior officer would believe if he did the right thing or not, he said.

“Practically, we need to enhance the trust level between the senior command and junior police officers as in most cases we use them as scapegoats,” he added.

However, the senior officer was not really optimistic about any change in the delegation of powers to SHOs owing to “public perception” of the police.

An additional inspector general supported the initiative, suggesting that keeping in view the current professional capacity issues of police, an administrative institutional mechanism should have been proposed within the standing order to keep a check on the misuse of these powers.

Another DIG-rank officer fully supported the initiative declaring it true spirit of law. “I wish we are able to hold on to this,” he said.

He said that sections 496 and 497 of the CrPC were in practice long ago, but for over two decades police forfeited this power in favour of courts as people started blaming the security personnel on various counts. “We will have to restore the honour of an IO/SHO and also have to prove that we are worthy of these powers,” he added.

Shedding light on the issue, another senior police officer said all the powers related to arrest, discharge and bail of an accused that the CrPC had given to the SHO had been taken away from him/her by senior officers and courts over complaints of these powers being used for personal interests. Resultantly, the SHOs started referring every case to the courts causing a burden on the judiciary, he maintained.

Now, when the Supreme Court realised that the SHOs should use their powers instead of referring all bails or related matters to courts, few fundamental questions still remain. “Are we, as a society, mature enough to give police enough respect that no fingers would be raised on an SHO when he uses his powers even fairly? Are the judiciary and senior officers ready to give SHOs the confidence required to make decisions independently? Are you now placing confidence in him overnight only to reduce burden on the courts?”

A superintendent of police (SP) called it a step in the right direction, adding that however it still required a lot of caution. “The use of sections 169, 496 and 497 of the CrPC was frequent earlier, but its sparse use started in the mid-80s for a variety of reasons -- political influence, shirking of responsibility by throwing the ball in the judiciary’s court, incompetence, mala fide intention to give benefit to a certain party and, finally, corruption,” he said.

The officer said this resulted in grave injustice towards innocent people, overburdening the courts, faulty decision making and strengthening of lawyers.

However, he said the IGP’s decision will go a long way in provision of cost-effective and speedy justice to the masses. Still, the use of these sections by SHOs must be subject to verification by the sub-divisional police officer and SP (investigation) concerned.

Another cop called it a great step largely to benefit the accused, who would not have to wait an entire night in a lock-up to appear before a court next day to apply for bail and also reduce police highhandedness.

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2019