INDIA: A mandamus writ will not ensure safety
A Statement from the Asian Human Rights Commission
February 20, 2014
AHRC-STM-033-2014
The Supreme Court of India has directed the Union Government to take
adequate measures to guarantee the safety of the people from the
northeast, in the rest of the country against alleged racial
discrimination. The court issued the directive while hearing a public
interest litigation filed in court, following a series of incidents,
where people from the northeast were targeted by criminals in New
Delhi and other parts of the country, allegedly motivated by racial
discrimination, in which lives were lost.
The Supreme Court's bench led by Chief Justice P. Santhasivam and
Justice Ranjan Gogoi has sought response from the government within
four weeks on the issue. While the initiative by the court, on the
face of it, appears interventionist. In reality, it is will turnout to
be a farcical attempt since none can guarantee the safety of a large
community that does not experience it at home. Neither does the
Supreme Court of India has an honourable record, of following up the
directives it has so far issued, anytime during the past six decades.
The people from the north-eastern states is perhaps the worst
affected by state-sponsored violence in India, next only to their
counterparts living in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The draconian
legislation, the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 (AFSPA) that
provides statutory impunity to violence committed by the armed forces
upon the people, has so far claimed a few thousand lives in India. In
the state of Manipur alone, the implementation of this law has claimed
not less than 1051 lives in the past ten years, the records of which
is available with the Supreme Court itself.
Government and civil society initiatives that have inquired into the
operational complexities of this law have repeatedly recommended to
the Government of India, that this law is one of the stumbling blocks
to realising peace in the states where this law is implemented. The
monstrosity of this legislation is further underlined by the fact that
neither the government nor the civil society have adequate records as
to how many lives have already lost, in places where this law is
enforced since 1958.
This law is so far enforced in the northeastern states and in Jammu
and Kashmir. For a brief period it was also enforced in Punjab from
1983 to 1997. It is not that there has been no violence in the rest of
India. The element of oppression based on discrimination and the
notion of racial supremacy is inherent with the genesis of this law,
the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Ordinance, 1942 promulgated to
suppress the Quit India movement.
Each year the operational remit of this law is reinforced in a
callous manner, without the Indian Parliament applying its wisdom. One
example is the state of Assam, where this law is extended to the
entire state as of 4 November 2013.
It is concerning this law some of the senior ministers of the
incumbent Union Government has expressed their incapacity to even
amend the law, including the incumbent Prime Minister as well as the
former Home Minister, Mr. P. Chidambaram. On 6 February 2013, Mr.
Chidambaram, soon after assuming office as the Finance Minister
leaving the Ministry of Home Affairs, said: "the armed forces, and
especially the Chief of Army Staff, the present one and the previous
one, have taken a very strong position that AFSPA should not be
amended." Chidambaram said this while delivering the K Subrahmanyam
Memorial Lecture in New Delhi. The statement makes one wonder, whether
India is a parliamentary democracy where the writ of a civilian
government is that what directs the armed forces.
Formulation and implementation of administrative polices is the
constitutional mandate of the government. While the Indian armed
forces has a consultative role in this process on issues affecting
national security, the Indian judiciary has a constitutional mandate
that it could exercise /suo motu /or on an application inviting its
jurisdiction, to test the constitutional /vires/ of all administrative
actions. It is a figment of this jurisdiction that it exercises while
issuing writs.
The Supreme Court has exercised its writ jurisdiction, from 26 March
1774, when the Court's predecessor, the Supreme Court of Calcutta was
allowed to do so under Clause 21 of the Royal Charter issued by King
George III (under 13 Geo III Cap 63 popularly known as Regulating
Act). Post independence, the Supreme Court has liberally exercised its
writ jurisdiction under Article 32 of the Constitution. Much of it,
the Court has done interpreting Article 21 of the Constitution, and in
the process progressively expanding the remit of Article 21 to include
within its expanse, right to housing, safe environment, the
fundamental rights to food, health and education, that has also
prompted, wherever required, constitutional amendments by the Indian
Parliament.
However, the fact is, the role played by the court ends here. It must
be so in jurisdictions where separation of powers is respected and
followed. Once the court directs the government to undertake a
particular act or to refrain from it, it is for a government that is
subjected to the same constitutional supremacy to breathe life into
the writs issued by the court.
In India unfortunately it has not been so, worse, the court cared the
least to follow-up. Had it not been so, illegal arrest, detention,
extrajudicial execution, custodial torture and incommunicado detention
would have stopped or radically decreased in India after the D. K.
Basu judgment. Post the Prakash Singh judgment; unwarranted political
interference in the administration of police would have stopped had
the Government of India as well as the state governments honoured the
directives issued by the court in that case.
Racially motivated acts are acts of crime simpliciter that calls for
immediate preventive and punitive state action. This is so elementary
that the Supreme Court of India need not spend its otherwise valuable
time pondering it. State actions to prevent crimes of all nature
require a law-enforcement agency that is able, morally and
professionally equipped, to discharge its duties. Unfortunately, the
police in India is one of the most demoralised state institutions, and
the people consider their police as criminals in uniform.
A statement issued by the Director General of Police in Kerala
yesterday reaffirms this position. The DGP said that 90\% of police
officers of the rank of Sub-Inspector of Police and above are corrupt,
inefficient in discharge of their duties, and clinically lazy. This is
true concerning the rest of India.
To ensure safety of Indians what is required is to change this
serious problem of the law-enforcement agencies in India. Further
fundamental to this is the repealing of the AFSPA in north-eastern
states, thereby making every home in the region a safe place. Both of
this is unfortunately not the job of the court, but that of the Union
Government and that of the state governments.
*For further information:* Bijo Francis at [email protected]
About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional
non-governmental organisation that monitors human rights in Asia,
documents violations and advocates for justice and institutional
reform to ensure the protection and promotion of these rights. The
Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.
* This PR was sent by AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission to e-pao.net
This Press Release was posted on February 21, 2014
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