India has laws to end lynching and violence

Experts say political will is required to implement the law

Maintaining that the existing laws were stringent enough to tackle vandalism, mob violence and lynching, jurists feel a sincere and strong political will is the need of the hour to enforce those laws and curb violence.

Appreciating the interference of the Supreme Court into recent incidents of mob lynching and vandalism by Kanwariyas in New Delhi, jurists say that the apex court had limited power to direct the Legislature to make laws. However, it had the power to intervene if it noticed the infringement of fundamental rights of citizens.

They said that a lack of political will in enforcing the laws would always force the Supreme Court to intervene and even High Courts had the power to protect the rights of the citizens of the country.

The jurists recalled that the apex court, almost a decade ago, had held that the police force which was instrumental in maintaining law and order in the country needed to be freed from the stranglehold of the executive and given functional autonomy to enforce the rule of law. The court, at the time had been dealing with the case of former DGP Prakash Singh with regard to police reforms.

Justice B. Chandra Kumar, former judge of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, referring to the suggestion of the Supreme Court to enact separate laws to deal with mob lynching said that the Supreme Court or the High Courts could only make suggestions to ruling governments to enact the statutes keeping in mind the needs of the society. But the courts had no power to compel the legislature to formulate a particular law, he added.

Referring to the riots which had taken place in Bhima Koregaon village at Pune in Maharashtra on Jan1, 2018, the former judge said that it was a blatant example of political supremacy over the executive, particularly, the police force which is a law enforcement agency.

He said that as many as 200 police personnel who were deployed to ensure a peaceful procession of Dalits in the village, had been withdrawn from the village soon after the upper caste mob started attacking the Dalits.

He said that it was unfortunate that the officers who were responsible for protecting the lives of the people succumbed to political pressure and withdrew the force without appreciating that the situation could turn violent.

Accusing that the ruling governments and their executive apparatus had been failing in administration for the past two decades, he said that it had led to unemployment and farmer suicides and also distress among several communities.

He felt that if mob lynching or the violence was allowed to continue it would certainly divide the country on communal lines which would shake the basic structure of democracy. It would also become a great threat to the secular fabric of the country.

Justice P. Lakshman Reddy, another former judge, while concurring with views of Justice Chandra Kumar pointed out that the delinquency of the executive authorities, more particularly, the officers of the IAS and IPS was one of the reasons for an increase in mob violence in the country.

He said that it was an undisputed fact that the political parties always acted for political gain, but, the great responsibility rested on the shoulders of bureaucrats to protect the lives of the innocent.

The former judge said that governments spend public money to train a bureaucrat and not to train a politician. A bureaucrat once taken into service would remain in service for at least three decades, but a politician should leave after five years if people rejected him in an election.

He said, “It is unfortunate that the bureaucrats have been forgetting this fundamental rule and are obliging their political bosses to fulfill their greed.”

The former judge said after knowing that reservations would not be possible beyond the cap of 50 per cent in view of the apex court’s order, political parties always made promises to certain communities in their states of providing reservations.

The agitations of various communities of Patels in Gujarat, Gujjars in Rajasthan and Marathas in Maharashtra were the fallout of promises by political parties, he added.

He felt that the possibilities for violent agitations could not be ruled out even in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in view of the forthcoming elections. Promises of the ruling TD in AP for reservations to the Kapu community and 12 reservations to the Muslims and SC and ST communities in Telangana by TRS had not yet been fulfilled, he added.

Justice Gopalakrishna Tamada, another former judge of the High Court, felt that strict implementation of the existing provisions under the CrPC for prevention of mobs and also provisions under the IPC would certainly improve the situation instead of waiting for a new law to be enacted to deal with mob violence or lynching. He said a strong will was required to enforce the law with an iron hand, but it was oblivious that political parties did not dare to do so.