CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government issued a notification on Wednesday under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) to make prior sanction from the government, necessary for the prosecution of police personnel of any rank for any alleged offence committed by them while acting or purporting to act in discharge of their official duty.
Though such protection (by mandating prior sanction) was available earlier under the erstwhile CrPC through its Section 197, it did not cover personnel in the ranks of inspector and below, barring the exception of inspectors in the ‘Q’ Branch, who were offered the same protection through a provision in the Tamil Nadu Police (Discipline & Appeal) Rules.
When BNSS replaced CrPC, the new Act’s Section 218 became the equivalent of Section 197. The BNSS, in its form brought to force by the union government, already offered such protection to the armed forces through sub-section 2 of Section 218, besides other classes of public servants covered under sub-section 1.
However, it left extending such protection to members of the forces in each state to the respective state governments by including an enabling provision in sub-section 3 of Section 218. This said that a state government can direct the provisions of sub-section 2 to apply to its forces through a notification.
It is in exercise of this power in the central Act that the home department in Tamil Nadu has issued the notification on Wednesday. The notification said that the requirement of prior sanction for prosecution under Section 218 of BNSS shall also apply to “all the classes and categories of police personnel of the Tamil Nadu police charged with the maintenance of public order, wherever they may be serving”.
The state government, through this notification, has ensured that the protection that was earlier available under CrPC to the police remained the same under the BNSS, while extending the same to cover all ranks.
It is noteworthy that a division bench of the Madras High Court, in July 2024, had ruled that the protection offered under Section 197 of CrPC cannot be extended to inspectors and the ranks below them.
