CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on Wednesday constituted a Police Commission headed by a retired judge of the Madras High Court, CT Selvam. The commission is aimed at improving the relationship between police and the public, studying service conditions and duties, modernisation of the police force etc.
For the first time, a Police Commission in the State is headed by a retired judge and this is done in accordance with the verdict of the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court.
With this, the DMK has fulfilled one more important electoral promise made during the Assembly elections last year. The Chief Minister made an announcement for setting up the Fourth Police Commission in the State Assembly on September 13.
Retired IAS officer A Allaudin, retired IPS officer K Radhakrishnan, psychiatrist Dr C Ramasubramanian and Dr Nalini Rao will be members of this Commission while Addl DGP (Crime) Mahesh Kumar Aggarwal will be the Member Secretary.
The commission will undertake an extensive study of various aspects of police departments and the welfare of the police personnel and submit its recommendations within a time frame. The recommendations will help the government in ensuring better policing, preventing cybercrimes and a friendly and humanitarian approach towards the people.
Tamil Nadu constituted the first Police Commission under the chairmanship of RA Gopalaswamy, way back in 1969 during the tenure of former Chief Minister M Karunanidhi. After an in-depth study, the commission submitted 133 recommendations of which 115 were accepted for implementation in 1971.
Again, during another tenure of Karunanidhi, the Second Police Commission headed by T Sabanayagam was set up in 1989. After going into the conditions of service, duties and responsibilities of police, the commission came up with 112 recommendations, of which 87 recommendations were implemented.
The Third Police Commission was constituted under the chairmanship of R Poornalingam in 2006. The previous AIADMK government headed by the then Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami announced the setting up of the fourth Police Commission headed by retired IAS officer Sheela Priya on October 16, 2019.
The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court, had in September 2021, directed the government to reconstitute the commission set up by the AIADMK regime, with a retired HC judge and comprising of social workers, public representatives, retired and serving police officials and civil servants as its members. The HC had also suggested that psychiatrists and other experts from various fields can be made as members.
The HC had also pointed out in its earlier verdict that the State government was directed to constitute a Police Commission headed by a retired judge of the HC. But the commission constituted in 2019 was headed by a retired IAS officer and not in tune with the order passed by the HC.
Terms of reference of the fourth police commission include...
Improving the relationship between police personnel and the public
Studying service conditions, duties, responsibilities of the police personnel
Modernisation of the police force
Studying extensively various aspects of police departments and the welfare of the police personnel