With the aim to make the Punjab police accountable and responsive, the Punjab Government, in a major decision today, decided to bring police services under the purview of the Punjab Right to Services Act, 2011.
This legislation will make Station House Officers (SHOs) directly responsible for public services and will be liable to financial penalty on failure of time-bound delivery of services. The move acquires a special meaning for Punjab, where the SHOs work directly under political bosses. According to the PRS Act, the SHO is proposed to be the designated officer to deliver the services to the people.
Once implemented, Punjab will become the first state in the country to bring the police under the PRS Act. The SHOs will have to reply to issues, supply documents, deal with cases, etc in a specific time frame. This will include issuance of no-objection certificates with regard to public nuisance and safety concerns, character verification, verification of tenants, servants, granting permission for fairs, exhibitions, permission for loudspeakers, etc.
The services that will fall under the purview of the SHO under this legislation will include issuance of copies of documents, countersigning, issuing of SMS and email services. Besides passport services that include registration of foreigners, extension or residential permits to foreigners etc will also have to be done in a time frame.
At the moment, this is normally done for a price. The SHOs will either have to accept or reject the cases and accord reasons for the same. The Punjab Government has already made provisions for making online complaints that can be accessed by the complainant and monitor the progress in the matter. The time frame for various services is being tabulated and is expected to be put up before the Punjab Cabinet when it meets this month after which the government will pass an ordinance.
The time period could vary from one day to one month, depending on the nature of the work. Apart from the service under the PRS Act, the SHOs will also have to perform other regular policing work like maintenance of law and order and crime prevention and detection. “The move will restore the diluted hierarchy within the police setup by making the SHO directly answerable to the people. If a SHO is unable to deliver services like passport or arms verification, issuance of NOC of stolen vehicles etc, the Deputy Superintendent of Police at the sub-division level will decide the complaints/ appeal against the erring SHOs.
“If the complainant’s grievance is not resolved, he or she can approach the Senior Superintendent of Police with a second appeal and if the SSP finds the delay on part of the SHO as unjustified, he will fine the SHO Rs 500 for each day’s delay. This amount will be recovered from the SHO’s salary,” a senior government official disclosed.
After the jurisdiction of the police stations were marked on the basis of political constituencies, the SHOs in Punjab had started acting at the behest of the MLA rather than their superior officer. By bringing the SHOs under the PRS Act, these SHOs will again become directly answerable to the DSP and SSP at the sub-division and district level.
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