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The Supreme Court (SC) has struck a decisive blow for good and effective governance by its order on a public interest litigation telling the political executive at the Centre and the States in effect, "Hands off the police"! It has, thereby, corrected a long-standing and pernicious situation in which Ministers, MPs, MLAs and prominent politicians all over India had made deep inroads into the professionalism and independence of police agencies.

Reports of Commissions, set up by the Government itself, as also the several judgments of the Supreme Court, contain ample evidence of the rampant interference with the functioning of the police by the political class, made worse by the well-established custom of pressuring it to use its vast armoury of powers under various laws to help favourites or harass opponents. The result is that not one criminal case involving political VIPs or their relatives and friends has seen the light of day, let alone ending in the accused doing time in jail.

Apart from the alarming fall in values in the police (even a few years ago, cops turning to robbery or an IGP committing forgery was unthinkable), the system itself, in which the politicians have the final say in the career prospects of the police personnel, makes their succumbing to political dictates inevitable. The SC, by directing the separation of law and order duties from investigation, prescribing a fixed tenure to top police officials and entrusting the responsibility to oversee the functioning the police, and decisions on career prospects to an independent security commission has brought about an incredible and beneficial sea change in public administration.

But it will remain an unfinished business if the non-police bureaucracy too is not similarly freed from political shackles, so that the scope for Ministers and the legislatures to meddle in day-to-day administration is reduced and they get more time to focus on formulation of policies and enactment of laws.

B. S. RAGHAVAN

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