How cops have been losing public’s trust

Ex-Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat

Mumbai Police historian Deepak Rao, who has tracked the growth of the city police from 1669, told a national daily on February 6 that he had never seen such a sorry state of affairs for that ‘admired’ force as it was now. He was referring to the present situation in which both the former Home Minister and previous Police Commissioner are facing criminal charges.

In 1995, Gary T Marx, Professor Emeritus, MIT, had said: “Police are both a major support and a major threat to a democratic society.” He added that the police should not be a “law unto themselves”, should not serve the partisan interests of the party in power, and should not use their special powers without realising their social responsibilities.

Even the London Metropolitan Police (MET), the model police system in the world, had difficulties in implementing these principles. The MET was established in 1829 by Sir Robert Peel, the then Home Secretary, with the concept of “Policing by Consent”, based on public approval, in addition to the decrees of the Crown and Law. This functioned well till 1877 when a big scandal besmirched its reputation, almost forcing the parliament to shut it down.

Initially, a sizeable portion of the London public was not in favour of a centralised police system, as envisaged by Peel. This was first opposed by the powerful St Paul parishes which did not want to repeal the old practice of appointing paupers as policemen, although they were corrupt. The Whigs felt that it was a trick to keep the Tories in power.

The public was also worried over possible attempts to trample upon citizens’ liberties through a central agency, resembling, at present, our states’ criticism against the Central police raids. Thus, when Peel’s new police appeared in the London streets on September 29, 1829, in the blue civilian uniform, they were ridiculed as “Blue Devils”, “Raw Lobsters”, or “Peel’s bloody gang.”

In 1842, Peel, who was by then Prime Minister, created a group of “Detectives” in the MET after an attempt was made on Queen Victoria’s life in 1840. Unfortunately, some of these officers were involved in the1877 misconduct. The trial of chief inspectors Nathaniel Druscovich, William Palmer, George Clarke and inspector John Meiklejohn was called “The Trial of Detectives”.

These officers were asked to investigate a “Turf Fraud Scandal” for cheating a Parisian woman named Mme de Goncourt by Henry Benson, William Kurr and his brother. Benson, a forger, had created a fictitious French newspaper, le Sport, with a fake identity as “Mr Montgomery”. He made the victim part with 10,120 British pounds through a horserace betting fraud. She was about to send another 30,000 pounds when her bank advised her caution. She then engaged a solicitor who tracked Benson and the Kurr brothers.

The accused detectives, who were entrusted to arrest the gang, allowed them to escape as they were receiving bribes. Their trial on October 22, 1877 makes one realise how much corruption had then seeped into the Scotland Yard. It was also a case study of how law enforcers could misuse their powers for personal benefit. In this case, all except Clarke were sentenced to serve two years in prison with hard labour.

This incident led to a public outcry, compelling the parliament to set up a commission to enquire into the advisability of having a detective division, members of which appeared to be breaking the law in plain clothes. Howard Vincent, a former military officer-turned lawyer who had studied the Parisian Police system, was entrusted by Home Secretary RA Cross in the Disraeli government to take charge of the reorganised Criminal Investigation Department (CID) as director. He was given the powers to report directly to the home secretary, bypassing the commissioner. Incidentally, Cross was the creator of the Indian Intelligence Bureau (IB) in 1887 as Secretary of State for India.

The second major scandal involving the MET was on May 23, 2010, when the Sunday Times exposed businessman-gangster David Hunt’s criminal activities through reporter Michael Gillard, who cited confidential police documents. Hunt’s libel suit against Gillard came up for hearing in the high court in July 2013 when security men accompanying him to the court abandoned him, exposing him to physical danger. The case was dismissed by the court.

In the same month, three “whistleblower” officers addressed a letter to the then MET commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, that their own colleagues were frustrating efforts to investigate Hunt, a real estate mafia leader, by leaking out their moves to arrest him. The British media had then taken a clear lead at personal risk to their reporters to expose the Hunt syndicate which was involved with organised crime like prostitution, money-laundering, murder, and fraud.

During the trial, the Sunday Times requested the MET to officially produce those documents. Instead, the MET sued the reporters and wanted the documents back from them. Also, the MET sued two of its own officers for giving evidence in Hunt’s case. Their only fault was that they had deposed in the court about their own in-house report in 2008 about David Hunt’s criminal activities and that they faced threats to their lives. This gave a distorted public impression that the MET was protecting the Hunt syndicate and harassing the media and police officials who were exposing the crime cartel.

Coming specifically to Maharashtra, the problem of politician-police-cash-transfer nexus had started in 1987 when Section 4 of the Bombay Police Act was amended, transferring police ‘control, direction and supervision’ functions from the police chief to the government. This made junior policemen gravitate to politicians for choice transfers, diluting the operational control of the chief of police. This amendment needs to be scrapped if the state’s MVA government wants to regain public confidence.

Only a vigilant media and an impartial government would be able to protect the citizens’ rights as watchdogs. While the media should watch the police, the Government Secretariat should only supervise a fully professional police force under a police chief who should have full power to rotate his officers, without political interference and also be held totally responsible for all actions of the force under him/her.

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