Type Govt
Industry Public Safety
Founded 1972
Address Shantipur, Assam Arunachal Road, Shantipur, Arunachal Pradesh 792110
Founders
Headquarter
Revenue
No of employees:
Description
Having been constituted only in 1972, Arunachal Pradesh Police remains one of the youngest police services of the country. There are several historical factors for this delayed constitution of the force. Being an integral arm of the law & order administration in the state, it had to follow the prevailing norms, which in the shape of customary laws, were very rightly, given a position of preeminence. In fact, the whole philosophy of administration in this area, in the words(957) of our first Prime Minister, was summed up as:
1. Philosophical
“We should avoid over administering the area and in particular sending too many outsiders into tribal territory. Various avenues of development have to be pushed within the broad framework of five fundamental principles.
People should develop along the lines of their own genius and we should avoid imposing anything on them, we should try to encourage in every way their own traditional arts and culture.
Tribal rights in lands and forest should be supported.
We should try to train and build up a team of their own people to do the work of administration and development. Some technical personnel from outside will, no doubt, be needed especially in the beginning. But we should avoid introducing too many outsiders in the tribal territory.
We should not over administer these areas or overwhelm them with multiplicity of schemes. We should rather work through and not in rivalry to their own social and cultural institutions.
We should judge results not by statistics or the amount of money spent but by the quality of human character that in involved”.
2. History
Prior to the independence of the country, the British had introduced the Assam Frontier (Administration of Justice) Regulation, 1945, so as to ensure that a vast majority of disputes and cases, both civil and criminal, were adjudicated in accordance with the prevailing traditional codes of the tribal communities. Even though the Indian Penal Code was already in existence to facilitate holding of trials by regular courts whenever it became absolutely necessary, nevertheless, it was well recognized that the conventional legal system was unsuitable for the tribal societies. The regulations recognized the age old authority of village councils, where they existed, also the authority of village headmen and the system of Chieftainship, in so far as they contributed to the continuance of indigenous legal system. According to the Regulation, the ordinary duties of police in respect of crimes were to be discharged by the village authorities, appointed under section 5 of the Regulation of 1945, who were also entrusted with the task of maintaining peace and order within their jurisdiction. The Regulation, however, stated explicitly that the village authorities would not be deemed to be police officers for purposes of section 25 and section 26 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 or the section 62 of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1898. These statutory village authorities were different from Kebangs, the traditional village councils. A village authority was empowered to impose a fine not exceeding Rs.50/- for any offence that, they were competent to try. With regard to police duties, the village authorities, besides keeping watch on suspicious characters, had the power to apprehend any person suspected of having committed a crime or hand over a person so apprehended to the political officer or an Assistant Political Officer for custody. Provisions were also made for appeals to higher courts of law against the decision of a village authority. Thus, at the basic level of village, the traditional village authorities were left with complete freedom to regulate the social, cultural and legal affairs of the villages. Above the village level, where indigenous political and legal structure was absent, the gap was sought to be filled by the regular administrative apparatus as prevailed in other parts of the country. However, the society being primarily rural, such instances were extremely rare.
