Delhi Police pull up cops for delays in sending replies to Parl questions

new delhi: While every Parliament session sees the Ministry of Home Affairs answer a varied set of questions pertaining to law and order in the Capital, the Delhi Police have now noticed that officers in the force were inordinately delaying replies to Parliament questions, which in turn caused problems for PHQ officials to compile the information for the ministry, Millennium Post has learnt.

Police sources said that in February, a message was sent to Additional CPs, districts, unit DCPs, ACPs and inspectors, in which the city police showed their unhappiness over the issue. "It has come to the notice that replies of Parliament questions are not being sent to PHQ in time by districts and units and are often vague or incomplete," an Additional CP is known to have told senior officers.

The official added that this negligence leads to other problems as well. "It causes an undue delay in preparing replies at PHQ level. Given above, all Additional CPs, DCPs of districts, units, including PHQ branches, were directed to send replies of all Parliament questions on time," the official said.

According to the official, the replies should be sent within 24 hours on receipt of the questions. "This has the approval of the Joint Commissioner of Police (Headquarters)," the official said.

This is however not the first instance of cops slagging off when it comes to paperwork. Last year, the Delhi Police told officials that they had observed in several instances that the communications, representations, complaints, references, received from VIPs ( Member of Parliament, Member of Legislative Assembly, Lieutenant Governor, PMO, CMO, MHA Courts, other government agencies including various commissions (NHRC, CVC, DOV, PGC, PCA) were not being attended to promptly as per the manual of office procedure and instructions contained in standing order 104/2010.

An official had told officers at the time, "In case of excessive delay the responsibility against the defaulter be fixed and suitable departmental action against the concerned should also be initiated."

In 2019, the Delhi Police had directed its officials to dispose of over 3,800 pending VIP complaints and references in a time-bound and qualitative manner. Then Special CP had directed that all L-G references should be given priority and well-drafted replies should be sent to the L-G's office. The senior official had directed that MHA references should also be monitored regularly and timely and qualitative disposal of these references must be ensured.