Administrative control over the Delhi Police has been a repeated source of conflict between the Central and Delhi governments. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, in his meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Rajnath Singh last month, reportedly raised two demands: >full statehood for Delhi and control over Delhi Police. Mr. Kejriwal, in his previous stint as Chief Minister, had sat on a dharna to demand the suspension of three Delhi police officers who refused to arrest some Ugandan and Nigerian nationals on the orders of the then Law Minister, Somnath Bharati.
Since the public uproar in the aftermath of the >2012 Nirbhaya rape in Delhi , women’s safety has acquired political salience and the political class is hard-pressed to show strong action on the issue. However, women’s safety and other issues of policing resist quick-fix solutions. This makes the public tussle over administrative control of the Delhi Police all the more politically attractive for incumbent Chief Ministers who, often unfairly, have to face flak for the real and perceived inaction of the police force. The issue, however, is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. There is a via media, though, that the Delhi government should explore.
Alternative solution By the order of the Lt. Governor of Delhi, there exist Thana Level Committees (TLC) for each police station in Delhi, chaired by the area MLA who represents major parts of the jurisdiction of the police station. Members of the Committee include other MLAs, Members of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, the New Delhi Municipal Council, and the Cantonment Board, with jurisdiction over the concerned police station, the area Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Station House Officer and civil society representatives. The TLC, which is meant to meet every two months, has a wide ambit, including advising the SHO on ways to check crime in the area; attending to public grievances against the police, and on matters affecting communal harmony and encroachment on public land.
Such committees become defunct because of a lack of intent and transparency, and end up populated by henchmen of the elected representatives. Committee meetings are thus perfunctory or often not convened at all.
The Committee’s recommendations are advisory but an astute politician will recognise the immense political value of the platform.
In the ongoing tussle for control over Delhi Police, the State government can at least push for empowerment of TLCs so that the Central government mandatorily responds to its recommendations in a time-bound manner.
Enabling accountability The >Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has swept into power on the back of strong public interest and an anti-corruption campaign. Restoring the oversight role of these Committees is one opportunity to make good on its assurances. The role of an elected representative — in addition to legislation — is to oversee the functioning of the government.
By converting TLC meetings into public hearings, an MLA can virtually transform the functioning of the police stations under his/ her jurisdiction by raising all instances of alleged corruption, excessive use of force, non-registration of FIRs, undue detention and so on. The AAP has 67 of 70 MLAs in the Assembly and if each MLA were to hold public hearings on the functioning of the local thanas under his/ her jurisdiction, the political mobilisation will be powerful, not just to enforce action against errant officers but to initiate institutional reform. Minutes of meetings and action taken reports will create a powerful trail of documentary evidence of corruption and inefficiency, impossible to ignore by the Police Commissioner or the Home Ministry. Further, the people’s participation will lend the recommendations legitimacy that dharnas are unlikely to give. The public hearing format, if used, has the additional benefit of bringing to public notice any interference by political functionaries and of institutionalising the collective strength of the citizenry. At the same time, working through institutional measures will provide a check on the worrying tendency to vigilantism that some AAP representatives display as evident in the Somnath Bharti’s midnight raid incident and more recently when two AAP MLAs clashed with police in Burari.
More importantly, this can help institutionalise the considerable informal power exercised by MLAs and provide a model for how elected representatives and political parties should truly function. An elected representative is constitutionally bound to represent the interests of the entire constituency but this is possible only if he can supervise affairs at the level of process rather than individual petitions, which are susceptible to arbitrary selection.
Empowering the MLAs The AAP’s electoral promises are derived from centralised state power and revolve around top-down anti-corruption measures. These are legitimate areas for state action and one does not doubt the intent. However, political accountability will have to locate its centre in the individual elected representative and not the political party. In the absence of this, the electorate is reduced to recycling power between two or three political parties. Voting in this election was strongly for the party than for individual candidates, with the AAP winning 96 per cent of the seats. With the Opposition thus decimated, it is even more important for the AAP to devolve power internally by strengthening the institutional role of its elected representatives. That would herald a new kind of politics.
(Ruchi Gupta works in the All India Congress Committee Scheduled Castes Department. )
