SC fumes over agitationists 'browbeating' govts

The Supreme Court took strong exception to growing incidents of protestors and agitationists using "strong-arm tactics to browbeat governments" by blocking rail and road traffic.

The court said it cannot remain a "mute spectator" to groups using muscle power for taking the country to ransom and warned them of drastic steps for violating the rule of law.

The strong remarks were made by a bench comprising Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly which was hearing a petition relating to the killings of Dalits in Mirchpur village of Hissar district in Haryana.

It was expressing its displeasure against members of the 'khap' (community) panchayats, which during their protest against the booking of some upper caste people in the Mirchpur Dalit killings case, had disrupted rail and road traffic causing huge loss to the exchequer.

"One group of people, who are having muscles cannot put people of the country to ransom. People have a right to transport," the bench said asking the Railways and the Haryana government to assess their financial losses due to the disruption in rail and road traffic during the 11-day stir organised by 12 khap panchayats.

The bench directed the Northern Railway general manager to instruct senior officials to file an affidavit quantifying the loss suffered by the Railways. It also asked the Haryana government to evaluate and apprise the court about the loss suffered by the state exchequer and steps taken by it for free flow of road traffic.

The bench also issued notices to the Centre and the state government and sought their responses within two weeks. While dealing with the matter, the bench also spoke about the recent agitation by the Gujjar community in Rajasthan which paralysed the rail and road traffic. "In the last few years, we have been witnessing, for 30-40 days trains are being stopped in Rajasthan. Thousands of passengers were prevented from using the railway service. governments behave as if they were subservient to the agitators, as if there was no government at all. If these reports are correct, You have to explain," the bench said.

"Unless situation improves, we have to take very drastic steps. The Court cannot tolerate these persistent attitude of any community for destroying the absolute right of life of other communities. Please mark our words," the bench said.

"This court cannot remain a mute spectator to the show of muscles at the cost of constitutional principals. Unless rule of law prevails this court will take drastic steps, the kind of which was not seen so far. Muscle cannot prevail over rule of law. We want to know whether members of any particular community started using strong-arm tactics to browbeat the government," it said.

Villagers had been protesting against the booking of 98 members of their community in the case relating to the killing of 70-year-old Tara Chand and his teenaged daughter Suman at Mirchpur village in Hisar on April 21 last year. The apex court on December 8 last year had shifted the trial of the case from Haryana to a court in national capital.

Demanding a fresh probe into the Dalit killings, upper caste people of Mirchpur and other adjoining villages in Hisar district had brought the rail and road traffic to Delhi via Jind to a grinding halt earlier this month. Members of the pre-dominant Jat community had been sitting on railway tracks at Julani village near Jind railway station since January 15, disrupting railway traffic on the Jind-Jakhal section of the Delhi-Ferozepur route.

The protesters had also been blocking road traffic in Jind and other places of the state, besides locking the Haryana roadways bus depot in many places. Normalcy was restored in the troubled districts on January 26 following talks between leaders of the protesters and Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda in Kaithal.

Hooda assured Bhag Singh Jalabh, convenor of the 41-member committee constituted by Sarvjatiya Sarvkhap Mahapanchayat, to look into complaints that many of the upper caste people had been falsely implicated in the case. A Delhi court had on January 9 directed the Haryana government to move all the 98 accused from Hisar jail to Tihar prison since their trial was transferred to a court in Delhi following a Supreme Court order. The protesters had been demanding that the probe be held by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) either at Rohtak or Hisar and the accused be lodged in either of the two jails.