It is rightly pointed out by Leader of the Opposition, Mukul Sangma that the State Security Commission (SSC) in Meghalaya is now virtually defunct. The SSC is a mechanism recommended by the Supreme Court of India as part of a package of seven directives aimed at systemic police reforms. The Commission was to act as a buffer between the political executives and the police. In short it is meant to insulate police from political interference in day to day functioning, especially in appointments and transfers of senior police officials. The SSC was to be an independent body and not populated with people handpicked by the Government. The Meghalaya SSC is therefore not what it is meant to be. One important mandate of the SSC is to develop policy and performance parameters for a more efficient and accountable police organization.
Police reforms have been attempted with the purpose of ensuring that India breaks away from the colonial mindset where police continue to be the “rulers” police instead of the citizens’ police, providing security to the common citizen. It’s a different matter that governments have failed to comply with the SC directives and even if they have, the SSCs are largely defunct. The balanced composition suggested by the court is ignored and the need for accountability to the legislature and binding powers are blatantly disregarded. The mandate of the Commissions is the only component of the court’s design that has generally been adhered to. But even here, some states have substantially weakened their Commissions’ mandates.
In Meghalaya, under the MDA the SSC has rarely met. Recently, Deputy Chief Minister, Prestone Tynsong defended the Government saying the SSC meets only when necessary. Perhaps he has not read the fine print of the SSC mandate. Going by that statement it would appear that everything is hunky-dory with policing in Meghalaya when the contrary has been true in the past four years. Every rule in the book has been broken to facilitate illegal mining and transportation of coal at a scale not known before. Interestingly, in the past the Meghalaya SSC was pointed out as a model for convening the SSC regularly, making it the most proactive SSC in India, until about 2017. Now the political executive exercises a firm grip on policing. According to the mandate laid out by the Supreme Court the Commissions should bring in external experts to conduct the specialised function of devising performance indicators and conducting a performance evaluation of the police organization. The Commissions must meet at least every three months and prepare annual reports to be submitted to legislatures in time for the budget session and also comply with Section 4 of the Right to Information Act, 2005. All these have been given short shrift in Meghalaya and the Police are not complaining.
