Bombay High Court judge Gautam Patel opined that the cinematic image of a hero cop delivering quick justice without bothering about the due process of law, as shown in blockbuster films like Singham, sends out a very harmful message.
Justice Patel, while speaking at a function organised by the Indian Police Foundation to mark its annual day and Police Reforms Day, also questioned people's "impatience" with the process of law.
"In movies, police rail against judges who are shown as docile, timid, thickly-spectacled and often very badly dressed. They accuse courts of letting the guilty go. The hero cop delivers justice single-handedly," he said, as per PTI.
"Singham movie has especially shown in its climax scene where the entire police force descends on the politician played by Prakash Raj...and shows that justice has now been served. But I ask, has it," Justice Patel said, adding that we should think "how dangerous that message is."
"Why this impatience? It has to go through a process where we decide innocence or guilt. These processes are slow...they have to be...because of the cardinal principle that the liberty of an individual is not to be confiscated," he added.
If this process was abandoned in favour of "shortcuts", then "we subvert the rule of law," Justice Patel underlined.
Released in July 2011, Singham is an action film directed by Rohit Shetty. It is a remake of the 2010 Tamil film of the same title and stars Ajay Devgn in the lead role as a police officer.
Meanwhile, Justice Patel also stated that image of police as "bullies, corrupt and unaccountable" is a populist one and the same can be said about anyone in the public life including judges, politicians and journalists.
He also saluted Prakash Singh, the former Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police who had filed a PIL in the Supreme Court seeking reforms in the way the police machinery functions. Patel observed Singh's "undaunted and untiring efforts in making police reforms a reality", which led to the 2006 police reforms judgement.
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