WB Police asked not to send report directly to Home Ministry

The West Bengal government has instructed the police not to send any report directly to the Union Home Ministry on the law-and-order situation in the state without getting it vetted by the state secretariat.
"This is a practice where the Home Ministry sends a letter to the state police headquarters seeking a report on the law-and-order situation every year and replies are sent directly to it without seeking the opinion of the secretariat," a highly-placed source at the state secretariat told PTI.
But this year, the report from the police headquarters requires a nod from the secretariat, before being sent to the Centre, he added.

The source said the letter from the Centre, which was sent recently to the state police headquarters (Bhawani Bhawan), sought information on law-and-order in the backdrop of the arrest of several persons having links with terror outfits such as the JMB and IS, unearthing of an international child-trafficking racket and seizure of fake currency notes.
He said an "internal circular" was issued from the top echelons of the state police that "no statistics would be sent to the Home Ministry without the consent of the state secretariat".
The circular stated that henceforth such queries from the Home Ministry, seeking any report on law-and-order, should be forwarded to the state Director General of Police. From now on, no official at the police directorate will be allowed to send any report to the Home Ministry directly.

The DGP will go through the Centre's queries following which top officials of the administration will meet to decide whether to answer them or not. In certain cases, the chief minister's opinion could also be sought, the source said.

In 2013, the state had not sent any statistics to the National Crime Bureau (NCB).
The decision of the state government came in the wake of deterioration in the Centre-state ties over a number of issues such as the deployment of army at toll plazas "without taking the state's permission" and CRPF personnel accompanying income tax officers during a search operation in the state.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had described the two developments as a move against the spirit of the federal structure.