Delhi Police oppose AAP stand in HC

The AAP government’s plea that it should be allowed to perform functions like licensing, traffic management, passport verification and creating a state disaster response force, was opposed by the city police in the Delhi High Court on Wednesday.

Maintaining that its role “cannot be segregated in terms of core and non-core policing,” the Delhi Police said the Delhi government’s stand was a “misconceived” attempt to usurp the functions statutorily bestowed upon the agency. It was also stated that the Delhi government notification of January 9, seeking to appoint deputy commissioners (revenue) of all revenue districts in Delhi as the licensing authorities for city cinema halls, be kept in abeyance as it could lead to a direct conflict with the Commissioner of Police. The submissions have been made in an affidavit filed by the police before a Bench of justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva, before which the AAP government had filed the application for segregation of core and non-core functions of the police.

The police have said that under the Delhi Police Act of 1978, it has the mandate to look after all the functions including, prevention, detection and investigation of crimes, traffic management, passport verification and licensing.