KOLKATA: History sheets, voluminous registers kept at police stations, profiling criminals and their aides, will now have to wipe out names of minors, random inclusions of innocent people just because they are socially and economically backward. The pre-Independence Police Regulations of Bengal, 1943, will now be amended after Supreme Court spelt out five-point guidelines in a case involving Delhi Police to maintain history sheets, and asked states to replicate “Delhi model”.
It has also stressed that these will be internal police documents which can never be made public.
Pursuant to a May 7 order by the SC, the Bengal Police on October 24 issued guidelines on “disclosing identities of individuals connected with the offender in the history sheet”. The new guidelines stop random inclusion of names in the history sheet and make it clear only those people will be named in the history sheets who can aid and shelter a criminal on the run. Names of minors have to be wiped out, even if they are in conflict with law or child witnesses.
Importantly, the new guidelines bar police from “mechanical entries” of innocents just because they are poor, uneducated and happen to belong from backwards classes, SCs or STs. It also makes it clear that the history sheet is an “internal police document” and not a “publicly accessible report”.
According to the regulation 401 (a) PRB 1943, the history sheet is defined as: “History sheets shall contain a short account of the life of the person to whom they relate and all facts likely to have a bearing on his criminal history. They shall be opened only for persons who are, or are likely to become, habitual criminals or the aiders or abettors of such criminals.”
The SC directions were made in a case titled Amanatullah Khan versus Commissioner of Police, Delhi. Khan had moved court asking his history sheet to be deleted. Prodded by the SC, the Delhi Police submitted its revised rules on maintaining history sheets.
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