The reel-life Singhams seems a rare thing in reality with the Police misconduct complaints hitting a new high in Haryana. The statistics with the Haryana Human Rights Commission (HHRC), Haryana Police Complaint Authority (HPCA) and “Chief Minister window” corroborates the fact. More than 700 complaints have been made against police personnel of Haryana in HPCA. On the other hand, about 60 per cent complaints out of total complaints received every year are against Haryana police personnel in HHRC.
As far as “CM window” is concerned, out of about 20,000 complaints so far, a huge number of complaints are received against Haryana Police. An official of the State Government informed that thousands of complaints against police personnel have been received at “CM window” and cases have been marked to the concerned authority.
An official of the HHRC said that nearly 60 per cent complaints received by HHRC so far are against police personnel of Haryana. Till December 2014, a total of 2,618 fresh complaints were pending, 1,460 were disposed off and 1,158 complaints were under consideration. Sixty per cent of these complaints were against Haryana Police.
The official informed that the complaints are of various nature including allegations of helping the criminals, harassment of innocent, negligence in duty, demanding bribe among others.
“More than 700 complaints of serious misconduct by police personnel have been received by the authority so far,” said an official of HPCA, the body which was constituted by Haryana Government for a purpose of creating independent and impartial investigation agency against misconduct of police personnel. Sadly, these figures that certainly do not inspire public confidence in Police, are on the rise every year.
HPCA yet to get chairperson
The work has come to a virtual standstill at Haryana Police Complaint Authority (HPCA), which is functioning without its chairman for past several months. Except 7-8 employees including assistant, clerk and other junior employees, nobody is at HPCA to look into the complaints of public against Haryana Police. Sources said that the file to appoint a chairman and three more members of the authority is lying pending with the State Government since long.
Haryana assembly had last year passed the Haryana Police (Amendment) Bill, 2014, to provide for multimember State and district police complaint authorities. However, later the Punjab and Haryana High Court had issued a notice to the State Government hearing a petition filed against the amendments passed by State Assembly.
Following the amendment, the chairperson and members would be appointed by the CM from the persons of eminence having wide knowledge and experience of at least 20 years in the field of public life, academic, law, administration and governance, criminal administration and social work on the recommendations of State committee to be constituted.
An official of the HPCA informed that out of more than 700 complaints received by the authority, about 350 are lying pending due to absence of a chairperson. No action has been taken on a large number of complaints due to absence of senior functionaries of the authority.