Centre to enact new legislation for police administration in UTs

New Delhi, Mar 13 (UNI) Home Minister Shivraj Patil today said the Centre would enact a new legislation to effect police reforms in the Union Territories.

The bill would be introduced in the current or next session of Parliament, he said, while replying to questions on police reforms in the Lok Sabha.

He, however, said it would not be possible to indicate a definite time-frame for such a legislation in states.

Mr Patil said the Model Police Act drafted by the Soli Sorabjee Committee had been sent to the state governments for their appropriate consideration as ''police'' was a state subject. The Committee was appointed to review the 1861 Act.

The Minister said the Centre had been persuading the states, from time to time, to bring the requisite reforms in the Police Administration to meet the expectations of the people by reviewing the progress of implementation of recommendations of several commissions and committees concerning police reforms.

''Police being a state subject in the seventh schedule to the Constitution, it is primarily the state governmetns who have to implement the various recommendations made by the Commissions and Committees concerning police reforms,'' he said.

Replying to supplementaries, Mr Patil explained that the Centre had been holding meetings with state governments to review police reforms.

The Union Home Secretary had a meeting with Chief Secretaries on November 14 last to review police reforms and to ascertain action taken by the state governments on the Supreme Court judgement dated September 22, 2006 (Prakash Singh Vs Union of India and others) and their views on the model Police Act prepared by the Soli Sorabjee committee.

There was a broad consensus in the meeting in favour of pursuing further the police reforms which were already under consideration and implementation and the need for bringing a new legislation on police by the states.

He said another meeting was held by him with Chief Ministers of states on December 30 last. At this meeting, the state governments expressed their views differently on the issue. However, there was a general unanimity on the need to frame a new police law for contemporary needs.

Mr Patil said India had a police and people ratio of 1:800. This had to be improved. There were 13,000 police stations across the country. But it was a fact that there were 450,000 villages alone.

There must be improvement on this front also, he said.

Mr Patil sought to remove the impression that a big chunk of Police personnel had been deployed for VVIP and VIP security.

Out of a total of about 800,000 police personnel, only a few thousands had been deployed for this purpose, he clarified.

UNI