India: Kerala court directs police to be polite while interacting with people

Kochi - Panchayat in Palakkad district drops salutations like 'Sir' and 'Madam' when addressing officials

The Kerala High Court on Friday directed the Kerala Director General of Police to issue a circular asking police officials to stop using Malayalam colloquial language and disrespectful words such as ‘Eda or Edi’ while addressing the citizens.

A single Bench of Justice Devan Ramachandran criticised the Kerala Police while considering a petition filed by the father of a 15-year-old girl who complained of the rude behaviour of police and said that the police should be polite while interacting with people.

The petitioner had alleged that officers of the Cherpu police station in Thrissur district used disrespectful and coarse language while speaking to his daughter during a vehicle inspection as part of the Covid-19 protocol management.

“Police must learn to use polite language with the public. The police have no right to call Eda or Edi. There should be decent behavior. The DGP should issue a circular with proper guidelines,” said the Court.

No more 'Sir', 'Madam' salutations

Meanwhile, the Mathur village in Palakkad district, north Kerala has banned the colonial honorifics like 'sir' and 'madam' in its office premises with an aim to bridge the barrier between common people, people's representatives and civic body officials and thus build a bond of love and trust between each other.

Members and officials will now have to be addressed only by their names or designations.

With this, Mathur has become the first civic body in India to ban the usage of salutations like this, setting a unique reformation model for other civic bodies.

A recent meeting of the panchayat council had unanimously taken the historic decision and started implementing the new rule.

• India