Re-look at circular on SHOs working hours: HC to police chief

The Delhi High Court today asked the Delhi Police Commissioner to re-look at the circular relating to working hours of station house officers (SHO) here with a "humane" approach.
A division bench of Chief Justice D Murugesan and Justice Jayant Nath gave the direction on a plea seeking withdrawal of the September 2012 circular which asks officers to be on duty twenty four hours without any leave and does not allow them to go home unless they have permission from their seniors.
"Have a re-look into your circular. Have some humane approach towards the officers.... How can they stay away from their family...," the bench said and asked the counsel to seek instruction from the department by July 31, the next date of hearing.

The bench was hearing a PIL seeking withdrawal of police circulars relating to alleged inhuman working conditions of SHOs claiming people of Delhi would suffer by way of "degraded and inefficient policing".
The petitioner said, "Both the circulars of August 30, 1995 and September 10, 2012 are not in conformity with the Delhi Police Act and Article 21 of the Constitution of India and are also not according to the general conscience of a human being."
The court order came after an affidavit was filed by the police which said that "the job of the police officer is of urgent and emergent nature and directly relates to public service, so the police be allowed to continue with this practice for better public service."

"This circular was issued to make the area policing effective, to instill confidence among citizens at large and make them feel responsible for whatever happened in their jurisdiction," the reply filed by G S Awana, additional deputy commissioner of police said.
The affidavit said that as these days law and order and crime situation has started emerging continuously out of the various kinds of reasons- like accidents, missing children, rape of minors etc., SHO's continuous presence in police station is necessary.
"Their absence may lead to dilution in handling of the cases and may also lead to situation going out of hand," it added.