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| SC draws the line for protesters, police | | | New Delhi, Aug 16: The Supreme Court has drawn a "Lakshman rekha" between the people's right to protest and police responsibility to maintain law and order by defining the restrictions and limits that apply to both the sides. A bench comprising Justices AK Sikri and RK Agrawal clarified that people had a fundamental right to hold only "peaceful protests," not unruly demonstrations threatening public order and national sovereignty and integrity. Similarly, police and other security forces could use force only when it was absolutely necessary and stop the moment the situation was under control.
"It becomes a more serious problem when taking recourse to such an action, police indulge in excesses and crosses the limit by using excessive force thereby becoming barbaric or by not halting even after controlling the situation and by continuing its tirade," the apex court explained.
The bench came out with the clarifications in a judgment on a PIL by Jammu and Kashmir migrants whose agitation in August 2007 had turned violent. The police had committed excesses while dealing with the protest.
"Recent happenings show an unfortunate trend where such demonstrations and protests are on increase. There are all kinds of protests: on social issues, on political issues and on demands of various sections of the society of varied kinds.
"It is also becoming a common ground that religious, ethnic, regional language, caste and class divisions are frequently exploited to foment violence whenever mass demonstrations or dharnas take place... In Kashmir itself there have been numerous instances where separatist groups have provoked violence," the bench noted.
To deal with these situations, there was need for providing special training to policemen as events often took an ugly turn and went out of control because the security personnel did not know how to defuse such crises, the apex court said.
Applying these principles, the bench awarded a compensation of Rs 2,00,000 to Anita Thakur, the main PIL petitioner and general secretary of the Jammu and Kashmir Panthers Party, and Rs 1 lakh each to the party's secretary and a journalist who became victims of the human rights violations committed by the police while dealing with the protest by the migrants.
The bench rejected the state government's contention that its policemen enjoyed protection under the "doctrine of sovereign immunity." Such benefit did not apply to cases involving violation of fundamental rights, it said in the August 12 judgment.
The Jammu migrants were taking out a march from Jammu to Delhi to demand benefits on a par with their counterparts from the Valley when police stopped them at near Katra town. |
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