THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Home Department is actively mulling over rescinding its decision of setting up a police commissionerate system on the wake of the recent custodial death in Idukki. The commissionerate system had envisaged providing magisterial powers to the city police commissioners of Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram which the police higher ups felt could add more teeth to the department in dealing with law and order situations.
The commissionerate system was first proposed by the UDF Government, but the decision to implement it was taken by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan overruling the opposition raised by the IAS lobby. However, the Home Department has now lost the verve that it had once in implementing the system, Though the ruling partner CPI was up in arms against the plan, it was the scenario that arose after the custodial death of Rajkumar that prompted the department to have a rethink. Even veteran CPM leader and former Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan had expressed his disapproval of the plan.
“The incident (custodial death) came at a very very wrong time,” said a highly-placed source in the Home Department. “Now, because of that, there is an overwhelming concern among stakeholders whether giving unprecedented power to the Police Department by means of according them magisterial power is the right thing to do. There have been no such concerns before. But now, there is an air of apprehension about the system among the main decision makers,” the source said.
“It should be seen how much pressure the CPI is going to put on the government against the system. If they decide to go by the public sentiment created against the police after the custodial death, then the system will be wrapped up for the time being,” the source said.
Had the commissionerate system been officially announced, it would have given sweeping powers for the police as they no longer require the stamp of approval of the District Collectors in several matters such as declaring prohibitory, detention and shooting orders. Express had earlier reported the predicament the police top brass were facing as they will have to rearrange officers if the government backtracks on setting up the commissionerate system.