Coming down heavily upon the governments of Punjab and Bihar over recent incidents of unarmed civilians being physically assaulted by policemen, the Supreme Court on Monday said the administration was trying to “throw mud in the eyes of everyone” by resorting to “British formulae” to deal with the situation.
The top court rejected the Punjab government’s response to its earlier reprimand that the two erring constables, who beat up a woman in public, have been suspended and a magisterial probe has been ordered into the incident. “Our experience says that suspended police officials would be reinstated after three months... What will the district magistrate do, inquiry? Don’t throw mud in eyes of everyone. These are British formulae,” a bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and Kurian Joseph told the counsel appearing for Punjab government. “If the government is serious then it would have taken steps within 24 hours,” the bench added.
The bench issued notices to the chief secretaries, home secretaries and DGPs of all states and police commissions of Union Territories on implementation of the top court’s directions given earlier in the Prakash Singh case on police reforms. The bench also directed the DGPs of Bihar and Punjab to file personal affidavits giving explanations for the incidents. The SP of Patna and SSP of Tarn Taran districts, where the two incidents of police brutality occurred, were also directed to file the affidavit.
The bench further said that the incidents of police atrocities on innocent civilians were similar to “animal behaviour”. “How can police act in such manner? How can a woman be treated in this way? Was she a terrorist? The time has come to undertake some exercise to stop such incidents and some concrete action must be taken by the state... Innocent and unarmed people were beaten up in these incidents. This is animal behaviour,” the bench said.
On March 4, a woman was thrashed by police constables on a highway in Punjab’s Tarn Taran district when she had approached them along with her father for lodging a complaint against harassment by a truck driver and his accomplices. In the other incident, Bihar police personnel on March 5 resorted to baton charge and fired tear gas shells outside the Assembly in Patna during a protest by contractual teachers demanding regularisation of their jobs and pay parity with regular teachers.
After the media reported the two incidents, the apex court last week took suo motu cognisance of the matter.