Centre wants states to tweak cops' responsibilities

Inability to investigate around 30% of the FIRs registered in a year and the declining number of charge sheets have prompted the Centre to ask states to tweak the responsibilities of the police.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has asked states to establish dedicated “investigation cells in all districts” and “entrust all new cases” to this unit. It also wants a separate roadmap to separate law and order duty from investigation in a time-bound manner, a communique sent by the MHA to states stated.

The suggestion is part of the actionable points on separation of law and order duty from investigation identified by the MHA from the recommendations made at the Directors General of Police Conference held in Hyderabad in November.

According to the MHA, the states have “certainly made sincere attempts to improve” the criminal justice system and this is evident from the rise in number of FIRs. The letter comes at a time when there is “considerable improvement” in the filing of FIRs, but a large number of cases are not investigated. The percentage of IPC cases investigated stands at 68.4%, 71.8% and 71.5% for 2013, 2014 and 2015, respectively. For crimes against women, it is 61.8%. 68.4% and 66.5%.

“Data also indicates that there is a backlog of cases taken up for investigation and over the period, there is a declining trend in cases in which charge sheets are submitted, compared to the total cases in which investigations have been completed by the police,” the communique noted.

It said that the states have set up units like the Crime Branch to deal with specific cases of grave offences but all other cases continue to be handled by the local police. The MHA, which argues that entrusting investigation duty to the police would have an adverse impact on investigation as well as maintenance of peace, wants the states to take immediate steps.