Taking into account several instances of investigating officers (IOs) sleeping over complaints for months, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Thursday issued a set of directions to the Director General of Police to be forwarded to all IOs.
Justice D. Krishnakumar, hearing criminal original petitions seeking direction to police officers to act on complaints, also disapproved of the police getting involved in civil disputes. The guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court with regard to conducting enquiry must be followed.
The court said enquiry should be completed by police officers within 15 days from the date of receipt of the complaint and in exceptional cases within six weeks. The status of the complaint should be communicated to the complainant through registered post, e-mail or even SMS.
A monitoring committee set up by the DGP, comprising the Additional Deputy Commissioner (Headquarters) in cities and Additional Superintendent of Police (Headquarters) in districts, assisted by the Assistant Commissioner of Police and Deputy Superintendent of Police respectively, should review the cases once in two months and submit a report to the Commissioner of Police and Superintendent of Police respectively.
The report should be forwarded to the DGP within a month and if any deviation was noted then action should be initiated against the erring police officers within three months after providing adequate opportunity to offer explanation, the court said.
It directed the DGP to take necessary steps to make provisions for online registration of complaints in all police stations expeditiously, preferably within six months. A periodical training programme should be conducted for the investigating officers to create legal awareness, particularly on civil and criminal procedures. The services of retired High Court judges and senior advocates could be availed for training, it said.
The court further directed the DGP to issue circulars in this regard to the police stations and Station House Officers. The circular should be permanently placed on the notice board of every police station. The court also suggested that the Principal Secretary, Home department, State government and DGP constitute a committee to evolve the minimum guidelines for the IOs so that they could effectively investigate the complaints.
