Arbitrary action: Prohibition law forcing Bihar police to act to show results

Though Nitish Kumar had said prohibition would reduce crimes, that does not seem to be happening.

Four people from the Buxar district of Bihar had to spent seven days in prison because a senior police officer of the district got a picture on his Whatsapp that showed these four individuals, all residents of Buxar, “consuming alcohol” while sitting in a car.

The picture had no details of the location, the date when the picture had been taken or whether the four individuals were even drinking liquor or just posing with empty bottles and maybe juice in their glasses. Despite that, the picture was forwarded by the senior official to the local police officer, with the order to take action.

Following this, the local police officer promptly arrested these four individuals and without carrying out any medical examination or trying to gather details regarding the date, time and location of the “crime”—which are the basic tenets of any police investigation—sent them to prison.

After being arrested on 30 June, they had to spend seven days in prison before they were given bail by the Special Judge (Excise), Buxar, on 8 July.

Now, two of these four people have approached the Patna High Court seeking, among other things, the quashing of the FIR that was registered against them, compensation from the government for what they had to go through because of the “abuse of power” by the police officials and departmental action against the police officers concerned.

On Monday, a single-judge bench of the Patna High Court of Justice Ashwani Kumar Singh, while hearing the case, made oral observations that the incident looked like a case of misuse of the prohibition law and asked the Bihar government why it should not impose fine on the erring officials. The court, while giving four weeks’ time to the government counsel to file a response, ordered a stay on the criminal proceedings that were going on against these four people in view of the FIR that was registered against them.

The prohibition law that was brought into effect in the state led by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on 1 April 2016, has been especially hard on the police personnel who are under a lot of pressure to “show results”.

In July this year, 41 police officers were punished for not implementing the law properly in their area of jurisdiction and as a punishment, an order was passed which said that they would now not be allowed to become the Station House Officer for 10 years.

Since the prohibition was announced, 67,000 people have been arrested. Even more alarming is the figure of pending cases under the Prohibition and Excise Act in the High Court, which, in the first week of July, was 297,766.

Nitish Kumar, while bringing this law, had stated that bringing in prohibition would reduce crimes in the state. However, that does not seem to be happening.

As per data made available by Bihar police, a whopping 841,331 cognizable offences have been registered in the state since 2015 till October 2018.

This includes more than 11,000 murders in the state which roughly translates to 2,750 murders every year or seven murders every day for the last four years. In the same period, more than 32,000 cases of kidnapping— not including 173 cases of kidnapping for ransom—have been registered.

The same period has seen 1,332 cases of dacoity, 6,061 robberies, 17,667 burglaries, 97,190 thefts, 618 road dacoities and a scary 4,818 road robberies. As many as 4,551 rape cases have been filed since 2015 till October 2018, which translates to more than three women being raped every day in Bihar.

It is not just the police that is feeling the pressure of implementing this law. Last month, the Patna High Court asked the state government, while hearing cases related to prohibition, how it intended to tackle the increased litigation after the ban on liquor.

The court of Justice Anil Kumar Upadhyay stated: “... the Home Secretary is required to assist the court how the state government wishes to tackle with the problem of increased litigation. The problem of increased litigation has a telling effect on the docket management. The figure of dependency indicates that it has reached an alarming proportion and in the absence of adequate court, judicial officers and support staff, case management is impossible. In the backdrop of the above, the affidavit is required to be filed duly vetted by the Chief Secretary, Bihar.”