Authorities should strictly follow the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court in a case in 2009, while handling the ‘fill the jail’ agitation by the DMK on Wednesday 4 to protest the foisting of cases on its leaders and functionaries.
The First Bench of Chief Justice M.Y. Eqbal and Justice T.S. Sivagnanam passed the order on a public interest litigation petition seeking a direction to the authorities to consider the petitioner’s representation and take preventive measures to curb the DMK’s agitation which, he claimed, would cause suffering to the public.
In the petition, R. Balasubramanian, an advocate, stated that the DMK had asked its cadre to launch an ‘arapporattam’ (peaceful agitation) on Wednesday. If the plan was allowed to materialise, there would be a law and order problem in the State. Therefore, it should be nipped in the bud by swift action. He sent a representation to the authorities on June 28 to take measures to prevent any suffering by the public because of the demonstration.
When the matter came up before the Bench, Advocate-General A. Navaneethakrishnan submitted that the government would look into the matter and ensure that law and order is maintained.
The court said that the respondents concerned should strictly follow the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court in ‘Destruction of public and private properties vs. State of AP’, in 2009. The order was passed on the basis of the reports submitted by the committees headed by Justice K.T. Thomas and F.S. Nariman.
The Justice Thomas Committee guidelines stipulated that the organiser should meet the police to review and revise the route to be taken and lay down conditions for a peaceful march or protest; all weapons, including knives, lathis and the like should be prohibited; the organisers should give an undertaking that the march would be peaceful with marshals at each relevant junction and, if the demonstrations turned violent, the officer-in-charge should ensure that the events were video-graphed through private operators and also request such further information from the media and others on the incidents in question.
A guideline of the Nariman panel was that wherever there was mass destruction to property owing to protests, the High Court may take suo motu action and set up a machinery to investigate the damage caused and to award compensation. The principles of absolute liability would apply once the nexus with the event that precipitated the damage was established. The liability would be borne by the actual perpetrators of the crime and the organisers of the event – to be shared, as finally determined by the High Court or the Supreme Court.
The First Bench said it was disposing of the petition with the observation keeping in mind the interest of the general public and public property.
