New Delhi: The Himanta Biswa Sarma government’s amendment to the Assam Police Act in 2022 has “severely constrained” enforcing accountability of the police personnel guilty of serious misconduct, a Right to Information (RTI) based study has revealed.The study, “Police Complaints Authority of India – Status, Gaps, Challenges”, published by the well-known rights international rights body, the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), has underlined that though Assam is among a few states to have a functional State Police Accountability Commission (SPAC) since 2008 as per a Supreme Court directive, the amendment made to the state Police Act by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in 2022 has severely compromised the Commission’s independence.In September 2022, the opposition’s demand to send the Bill to a select committee was rejected by the speaker, leading to a walk-out by the opposition, and the passing of the Bill by a voice vote.The CHRI study, based on data supplied by the Commission, has shown that the amendment had weakened the accountability of police personnel by “reducing the mandate of SPAC”.The study has pointed out that before the amendment, the commission “was empowered with advisory and guidance providing functions with respect to misconduct as well and it served as an important check against biased inquiries and provided a powerful fillip to police accountability.” However, with the state legislature amending the Police Act which included restructuring the district-level authorities, it has become difficult to demand accountability from the Assam police. These district-level authorities have been reduced to only a desk that forwards the complaints received further up than initiating an inquiry, as mandated by the apex court.Till the state Police Act was amended, “the Assam SPAC didn’t reject complaints without initiating an inquiry. In 2022 and 2023 (till March), the majority of the complaints were closed without inquiry, most likely due to SPAC’s reduced mandate following the legislative amendments”. The study has further underlined that the Commission no longer has the power to monitor the pendency of the inquiries at regular intervals. Parsing the data provided by the Commission through RTI, the CHRI study could establish that there has been a “low number of recommendations for departmental inquiries and no recommendations for registration of FIRs” over the last five years. “The state government’s act of reducing the SPAC’s mandate without a complementary increase in that of the (district accountability authorities’ is a cause of concern,” it underlined. What comes across as significant in the study is that the Commission’s recommendations in its annual reports have been ignored by the state government. For instance, in its 2018-2022 annual report, SPAC recommended that the state government allot land to it for a permanent office building so that “a huge sum of money” being spent towards renting office space could be saved by the state exchequer.Another noteworthy suggestion was demanding accountability from the state director general of police, binding an obligation on him to ensure quarterly status reports to SPAC on departmental enquiries against police officers. Also that the investigation of an FIR against a police officer should be conducted by an officer senior by at least one rank to him/her or by the state CID. With no action stated for the DGP if he falters in conducting inquiries, the accountability of that public office has been reduced substantially. The CHRI report recommends that to make SPAC act as per the Supreme Court mandate, “unreasonable delay or failure” on his part to report to Assam SPAC about action taken on its recommendations be considered “misconduct in line with the Model Police Bill, 2015”. Currently, the Commission is headed by retired Gauhati high court Justice B.P. Katakey as its chairperson with former state DGP Mukesh Sahay, retired IAS officer Gaurav Bohra and retired state service officer Moniratna Mahanta as members. The report has highlighted that their tenure would be over by this December, and the state government must ensure that those posts are filled in time. Currently, though the SC directive has sought one of its members to be a woman and one a member of the civil society, the Assam SPAC has not adhered to it. It has also underlined that the Commission is constituted without any transparency.Since the Sarma government came to power, Assam has been in the news for a sharp increase in ‘encounter deaths’ by state police, leading some civil society groups to seek the Gauhati high court’s intervention to inquire into it. Chief minister Sarma was seen in public in 2021 directing state police to shoot suspected criminals “in the legs” if they try to flee from custody.