Delhi police streamlines its operations

Summons are collected in centralised pool & divided area- wise

The Delhi police has started streamlining its internal mechanism to ensure prompt action and delivery of notices, summons and warrants issued by the city courts. While many districts have formed the central process serving pool to effectively handle the court- related matters, others have been complaining about the shortage of the staff for quick delivery.

An internal note prepared by the police made it clear that the service of processes received from the courts was one of the priority areas which needed special attention of the SHOs and ACPs. The note pointed out that most of the presiding officers of the courts had often complained about non- service or poor serv- ice of processes and lack of supervision on the part of the SHOs concerned.

In order to ensure better supervision and improve the percentage service as well as to save manpower and expenditure, the East Delhi district police had last year introduced the central process serving pool. Prior to this, service of summons, whether within the police station area or outside Delhi, was being done by deputing constables and head constables by each station.

Now, the summons are collected and kept in a centralised pool. They are reportedly sorted out police station- wise, district- wise and zone- wise. A team of servers is assigned the job to serve the summons in particular zone or district and those of the concerned police stations are served by the respective beat staff. The summons received from the court staff of each police station are given an encoded serial number and details of each process is fed in the computer.

A recent note issued by East district additional commissioner of police Mandeep Singh Randhawa said: “Initially, a requirement of one inspector, one sub- inspector, 16 head constables and 67 constables ( including three for data entry) was proposed whereas the cell is now short of four head constables and 11 constables.”

The note said that on an average a minimum of 3,500 summons and warrants are received every month.

“Out of the total 4,200 average processes received, 600/ 700 are outstation processes. “Two head constables and 24 constables have been detailed for the service of processes outside Delhi and most of the outstation areas, including Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, Bangalore, Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar and UP and in other remote areas having poor connectivity. Each of the process server is entrusted with 25 to 30 processes. Each of the process requires 2 to 3 days, which clearly implies that the strength detailed for the purpose is insufficient to cater to the number of processes pouring especially those to be served outside Delhi.

Mr Randhawa noted that on an average 1,300 summons and 300 warrants were received in each of the police stations of the East district. “And an average staff of one head constable and 3 to 4 constables is detailed in each police station of the East district.” The note said the average percentage service of summons was 90 per cent whereas that of warrants was only 40 per cent.