The Supreme Court has been moved for making policing “transparent, independent, accountable and people friendly”.

Advocate and former Delhi BJP spokesperson Ashwini Upadhyay has filed a petition seeking a direction to the Centre to constitute a ‘judicial commission’ or an expert committee to examine the Police Acts of developed countries, particularly the US, Singapore and France, so that a ‘model police bill’ be drafted.

The PIL also urged the court to direct the Law Commission of India to examine the Police Acts of these countries for drafting the bill in order to make the police system “efficient, effective, transparent, sensible, accountable and techno-savvy, and to secure ‘rule of law’ and right to life, liberty and dignity of citizens”.

The petition alleges that the 1990 Kashmir killings did not only happen in the dark of the night but in broad daylight as well “because what we have is ruler’s police not the people’s police”.

What happened in 1990 in Kashmir, also happened in 2021 in Bengal as well and that too in broad daylight. But the police did nothing as what we have is ruler’s police, not people’s police,” it claimed.

The ‘Colonial Police Act 1861’ is ineffective, outdated, cumbersome, and has completely failed to secure Rule of Law, Right to Life, Liberty, Dignity and other precious fundamental rights of citizens but executive did nothing to amend it, the petitioner said.

The PIL further alleged that many times, police don’t lodge FIR without consent of MLAs or MPs of the ruling party.

“And even if they lodge FIR on the court’s order, the ruling party representatives decide what sections should be used against the accused,” it said.

It further said that politicisation of the police is the biggest threat to the rule of law and the right to life, liberty and dignity of citizens.

A sizable number of officers show loyalty only to particular political ensembles, the PIL said.

If police officers had “operational independence”, the killing of Sikhs in 1984, Kashmiri Hindus in 1990 and the recent post poll violence in West Bengal “would not have featured in our history”, it claimed.