The Police and Communal Violence

The statutory powers a police force has to stop a riot before it starts, the duty it owes, and the four reasons it does not use them.

In the wording a student can write in an exam, taking the two statutes in turn.

Section 3 of the Police Act 1861 vests the superintendence of the police in the State Government, and provides that no person, officer or court shall be empowered to supersede or control any police functionary except as authorised by the Act. Section 4 vests the administration of the police in an Inspector-General, and, within a district, in a District Superintendent under the general control and direction of the Magistrate. Section 12 empowers the Inspector-General, with the State Government's approval, to frame orders and rules on organisation, distribution, the collecting and communicating of intelligence, and the prevention of abuse or neglect of duty.

Section 15 empowers the State Government, by proclamation, to declare an area to be in a disturbed or dangerous state, or that from the conduct of its inhabitants it is expedient to increase the police, whereupon additional police may be quartered there and their cost borne by the inhabitants, apportioned by the District Magistrate according to their means, with power to exempt persons or classes.

Section 23 makes it the duty of every police officer to obey lawful orders, to collect and communicate intelligence affecting the public peace, to prevent the commission of offences and public nuisances, and to detect and bring offenders to justice. Section 30 allows the District Superintendent to direct the conduct of assemblies and processions on public roads, prescribe their routes and times, require a licence where an uncontrolled assembly or procession would be likely to cause a breach of the peace, and regulate the use of music in the streets during festivals. Section 31 makes it the duty of the police to keep order on public roads and at places of public resort, and to prevent obstruction during assemblies and processions and in the neighbourhood of places of worship during the time of public worship.

Section 37 of the Maharashtra Police Act 1951 empowers the Commissioner or District Magistrate, by notification, to prohibit the carrying of arms and articles capable of causing physical violence, of corrosive substances and explosives, and the collection of stones or missiles; the exhibition of persons, corpses, figures or effigies; the public utterance of cries, singing of songs and playing of music; and the delivery of harangues and the dissemination of pictures, symbols or placards offending decency or morality or undermining the security of the State. Section 37(3) empowers the same authority to prohibit any assembly or procession, for no more than fifteen days without the sanction of the State Government.