Mangaluru : Members of the Karnataka Police Complaints Authority are touring the State to meet advocates and generate awareness on the functioning of the authority, former High Court of Karnataka Judge and chairman of the Karnataka State Police Complaint Authority A.S. Pachhapure has said.

Mr. Pachhapure told presspersons here on Wednesday that infrastructure, staff and budgetary sanction have been provided by the State government for managing the authority at the State and district levels. Though complaints were being filed, there was still a lack of awareness on the institution meant to redress complaints of serious misconduct by police officers.

As a part of drive to create awareness, Mr. Pachhapure said he has been visiting various districts in the State since the last two months. So far, he has covered eight districts. He will be having awareness programmes in Bidar and Kalaburagi in the next few days. Among the district police complaints authorities in all the 30 districts, Mr. Pachhapure said the Dakshina Kannada District Authority was functioning well. “There is good infrastructure and complaints are being disposed of in an effective manner,” he said. Of the 31 complaints that were filed, 15 have been disposed of and 16 are being inquired into. “I hope the pending cases will be disposed of in the next few weeks,” he said.

Earlier, addressing the Mangaluru advocates during the awareness programme, Additional Director-General of Police (Grievances and Human Rights) and Member Secretary of the State Police Complaints Authority Sanjay Sahay said they were not just dealing with complaints of police excesses. Institutions were also acting on complaints from police officers of false allegations made against them. “For any police excesses the victim has the right of redressal. The same applies to police officers facing false allegation,” Mr. Sahay said.

Principal District and Sessions Judge K.S. Bilagi also spoke. Superintendent of Police Bhushan Gulabrao Borase and Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Sanjeev M. Patil participated.