Have taken steps to bring reforms in police dept:Maha tells HC

Maharashtra government has informed Bombay High Court that it has taken effective steps to introduce reforms in the police department, like filling up vacant posts, upgrading forensic labs, providing adequate training and strengthening the investigation system.
The government said that it has taken these steps after the Supreme Court decision in the case of Prakash Singh versus State of Maharashtra and accordingly enacted Police (Amendment and Continuance) Act, which came into force with effect from February 1, 2014.
This Act provides for tenure of the Director General of Police and higher status police officers, the State Security Commission, establishment of the board for the policemen and an authority to look into the complaints and matters in order to avoid influence and pressure, a government affidavit said.

The affidavit was in response to a public interest litigation filed by 'Association for Aiding Justice' alleging that the state had not taken any measures to amend the existing guidelines, statutes and regulations in consonance with the Supreme Court directions in case of Prakash Singh.
The PIL alleged that in the light of development in forensic science and other technical education, there is a need to change the work culture in the police organisation by introducing various methods so as to strengthen the ability of policemen.
Responding to the government's reply, the petition alleged that the recent amendment to the existing Act deals with the organisation of police other than the police working in the metropolitan cities. Therefore, there is disparity between the same cadre of police officers who work in the city and those who work outside such cities, it said.

"If by amendment now proposed or as brought to be in the new amended Act creates such disparity, we are afraid, it becomes service matter which cannot be entertained in a public interest litigation," said a bench headed by Chief Justice Manjula Chellur in a recent order.

The government further said in the affidavit that
it had issued instructions to the Director General office to issue a circular requiring the Investigation Officers (IOs) to remain present in the sessions court when important witnesses are summoned by public prosecutors in criminal cases.
It said that it had decided to outsource work to private reputed forensic laboratories and hand writing experts for getting expert reports at the earliest. In this regard, a panel had been constituted. Besides, it had decided to upgrade forensic labs in the state, the court was informed.

The government has established Regional Forensic Labs at Nanded and Kolhapur in 2015 and 2016 respectively. Besides, it had decided to set up five mini labs at Thane, Ratnagiri, Solapur, Dhule and Chandrapur. The process for administrative approval is under active consideration of the government, the affidavit further said.
The state government also said that it had created 45 mobile forensic support units in every police commissionerate areas in cities and districts to help investigation agencies in collecting, preserving and forwarding clue material to FSL.
Besides, new services like psychology, cyber forensic, tape authentication and speaker identification (TASI) have been established in Mumbai FSL since 2007, the government said in the affidavit.

In 2015, the cyber forensic facility had been expanded in RFSL at Nagpur and Pune and TASI facility at RFSL in Pune, Nagpur, Aurangabad, Nashik and Amravati, the affidavit said.
The DNA (test) facility has already been started at Mumbai, Nagpur and Pune FSL and in future it will be expanded in all the remaining FSLs in the state, it added.
The government said that at the highest level it had introduced a system of maintaining data of criminal cases of serious nature in which investigations have been pending for more than one year. The system also involved continuous monitoring of the investigations by an officer not below the rank of Superintendent of Police in a district.

The government further said it had evolved an in-house mechanism to look into cases where faulty investigation had been conducted by officers.
In order to enhance the conviction rate, the state government had taken various steps. A monitoring committee has been set up vide Government Resolution dated May 12, 2015, to monitor the quality of chargesheets proposed to be filed in magistrate's courts and sessions court.
Only after getting approval from this committee, the chargesheets would be filed, said the government.