SC: Why reward encounter cops?

The Supreme Court on Monday took serious objection to the AP government not following the National Human Rights Commission guidelines to end the practice of giving auxiliary promotions to police personnel who gun down Maoists and other extremists in encounters.

In 2007, the apex court had okayed auxiliary promotions on a petition filed by AP Police Officers Association but the NHRC took a strong stance, terming them out-of-turn promotions.

On Monday, a bench comprising of Justice B. Sudershen Reddy and Justice S.S. Nijjar sided with the NHRC stance and wondered why there were auxiliary promotions only in AP and not in states such as Chhattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir and Maharashtra where the situation was much more serious.

The SC observations over a petition filed by advocate, Mr R. Chandrasekhar Reddy, has triggered a debate on the controversial issue.

The bench gave the state government two weeks to file a counter and government counsel assured the court that auxiliary promotions would be stopped till then.

Mr Reddy had filed a case in April 2006 stating the auxiliary promotions were responsible for the fake encounters. He later filed an interlocutory application in February 2010, which came up for hearing on Monday.

The advocate added that police were shooting down even sympathisers of Maoists and people giving food to the extremists, lured by the prospect of promotions.

“In Dubbaka in Medak a farmer who went to the water his crop in the night was shot down,” he said. “In Warangal a music band going on a bicycle was attacked. In Manthani six girls who went to fetch water from a well were killed, all in the name of encounters.”

A senior police officer, however, said that such promotions were conducted in a systematic manner and were scrutinised at four levels right from the district superintendent of police, Intelligence department, to the director-general of police and the home department. This had been approved by the apex court earlier.

“Officers deserve such promotions as they put their lives at risk in such operations,” he said. “Every year at least eight to ten cops of all levels from constable to DSP get auxiliary promotions.”

Meanwhile, the revolutionary writer, Mr Vara Vara Rao, said auxiliary promotions prompted the police to resort to encounter killings. “Earlier the High Court had also said that encounter killings should be treated as culpable homicide,” he said.