In the ‘All India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1969, Part III – Penalties and Disciplinary Authorities’ there already exist provisions for the sacking from service of IAS and IPS officials guilty of "any act or omission which renders him liable to any penalty specified in rule 6."

Since 1995, Communalism Combat has led a nationwide debate on the issue of deep-rooted bias among the echelons of the Indian Police Service and the lower constabulary. We have consistently analysed and exposed this disturbing trend evident in most situations of communal violence. Every judicial commission of inquiry — appointed by different governments in different states since Independence — has severely indicted the police for its blatantly partisan conduct. The failure of officers in uniform to follow the law – the Indian Constitution, and the IPC – have allowed some of post-independent India’s worst massacres (Delhi 1984, Bhagalpur 1987, Meerut-Maliana 1989, Ayodhya 1992, Surat 1992, Bombay 1992-1993 among many others) to take place.

Through the pages of CC, highly respected retired IPS officers have made a number of suggestions to ensure a professional IPS and IAS cadre that remains wedded to constitutional principles of equity, fair play and non-discrimination. These have included,

Ø The district/city collector and the police chief must be held directly responsible if he is unable to control communal violence within 24 hours. In instances of major conflagrations, he/she/they must be suspended or dismissed from service.

Ø Men in uniform, particularly senior officers, guilty of dereliction of duty must be prosecuted and punished swiftly.

Ø The state must adequately compensate survivors of communal violence for failing in its primary duty to protect the life, liberty, property and dignity of citizens. Property loss must be compensated as if the entire property were fully insured.

"No riot can continue for more than 24 hours unless the state wants it to continue," a serving police officer, then DIG of the BSF, Vibhuti Narain Rai had told CC in the course of a major interview in 1995. Since then, Rai’s bold remarks have been constantly referred to in national discourse on the issue.

If anything, the shocking conduct of the Gujarat police — not only since February 27, 2002 but ever since the BJP came to power in the state (1998) — brings the crying need for executive and legal initiatives into very sharp focus.

A serving IAS official has now drawn CC’s attention to the fact that in the ‘All India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1969, Part III – Penalties and Disciplinary Authorities’, there already exist provisions for the sacking from service of IAS and IPS officials guilty of "any act or omission which renders him liable to any penalty specified in rule 6."

Sections 107-110 and sections 143-152 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) give adequate preventive and punitive powers and deem it the duty of district magistrates and police chiefs to prevent breach of peace and ensure the rule of law:

Ø Demand execution of bonds, with or without security, from persons likely to commit breach of peace (Sec 107);

Ø Demand security for good behaviour from any person who intentionally disseminates or attempts to disseminate or abets the dissemination of any material that is likely to incite communal passion or religious hatred (Sec 108);

Ø Demand security for good behaviour from suspected persons (Sec 109);

Ø Demand security for good behaviour from habitual offenders (Sec 110);

Ø Prohibit repetition or continuance of public nuisance (Sec 143);

Ø Issue order in urgent cause of nuisance or apprehended danger (Sec 144);

Ø Arrest without warrant (Sec 145-148);

Ø Prevent cognisable offences (Sec 149);

Ø Information (to immediate seniors) of design to commit cognisable offences (Sec 150);

Ø Arrest to prevent the commission of cognisable offences (Sec 151);

Ø Prevention of injury to public property (Sec 152)

If the above-mentioned provisions of the CrPC spell out the powers and duties of district magistrates and police chiefs to ensure the rule of law, the All India Service Rules (1969) carry the provisions for the punishment of errant IAS and IPS officials.

THE ALL INDIA SERVICES (DISCIPLINE AND APPEAL) RULES, 1969

PART III—PENALTIES AND DISCIPLINARY AUTHORITIES.

(1) The following penalties may, for good and sufficient reasons and as hereinafter provided be imposed on a member of the Service, namely:

(vii) Compulsory retirement: Provided that, if the circumstances of the case so warrant, the authority imposing the penalty may direct that the retirement benefits admissible to the member of the Service under the All India Services (Death-cum-Retirement Benefits) Rules, 1958, shall be paid at such reduced scale as may not be less than two-thirds of the appropriate scales indicated in Schedules ‘A’ and ‘B’ of the said rules;

(viii) Removal from Service which shall not be a disqualification for future employment under the Government;

(ix) Dismissal from Service which shall ordinarily be a disqualification for future employment under the Government.

7. Authority to institute proceedings and to impose penalty:

(Rules under 7(1) (a) and 7(1) (b) specify that, depending on where the person in Service is posted, the competent authority to institute disciplinary proceedings against him or her, to impose on him such penalty specified in rule 6 as it thinks fit, will be the state or the central government – editors.)

7(2) The penalty of dismissal, removal or compulsory retirement shall not be imposed on a member of the Service except by an order of the Central Government.

7(3) Where the punishing Government is not the Government on whose cadre the member is borne, the latter Government shall be consulted before any penalty specified in rule 6 is imposed:

Provided that in relation to the members of the Service borne on a Joint cadre, the punishing Government shall consult the Joint cadre Authority:

Provided further that where the Governments concerned are the Central Government and the State Government or two State Governments and there is a difference of opinion between the said Government in respect of any matter referred to in this rule, the matter shall be referred to the Central Government for its decisions, which shall be passed in consultation with the Commission.

In the context of Gujarat, it is apparent that the BJP government in the state and the BJP-led government at the Centre would be least inclined to invoke these Service rules to punish IAS and IPS officials, "Where a member of the Service has committed any act or omission which renders him liable to any penalty specified in rule 6." However, nothing prevents the survivors/victims of the ethnic cleansing or public-minded citizens from petitioning the courts in the interest of justice and upholding of the Constitution.