The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the State of Chhattisgarh to file on Wednesday an affidavit pursuant to the directions issued on July 5, 2011, banning the Salwa Judum and asking the authorities to vacate all the schools and ashrams occupied by security forces.
Acting on petitions filed by social anthropologist Nandini Sundar, author Ramachandra Guha, activists Swami Agnivesh, Kartam Joga and others, the Supreme Court in its July 2011 order gave a series of directions to the Centre and the Chhattisgarh government and sought a compliance report.
A contempt petition was filed stating that the Chhattisgarh government had not complied with the directions and did not file its response.
When the matter was taken up on Tuesday by a Bench of Justices S.S. Nijjar and H.L. Gokhale, counsel for petitioners Nithya Ramakrishnan told the court that a contempt petition was filed for non implementation of the directions.
Ms. Ramakrishnan submitted that despite the court’s ban on vigilante Special Police Officers, the State had regularised all the SPOs by legislation. She wanted the court to take up the contempt petition for hearing.
However, senior counsel Harish Salve asserted that the State would file its affidavit by Wednesday. Justice Nijjar told Ms. Ramakrishnan: “First we have to satisfy whether contempt is made out. You file your reply to the State’s affidavit. Then we will consider your contempt petition.”
The contempt petition said the Chhattisgarh government had negated last year’s order with impunity. The SPOs were not allowing the CBI to conduct the probe, as a result of which the CBI was now seeking protection from the SPOs. Even after one year, all schools were not vacated by security forces.
Though a direction was issued to stop all support to Salwa Judum, the State had never acknowledged or punished illegal acts by the organisation. Though the court directed registration of FIRs for investigation of criminal cases, the action taken on cognisable offences cited by the National Human Rights Commission was negligible.
Further, nobody was compensated for property losses — even in camps, leave alone villages, the petition said adding that the victims of Salwa Judum were not compensated even for loss of life. The Bench posted the matter for further hearing on August 6.
(Ms. Nandini Sundar, one of the petitioners in this case, is the wife of this newspaper's Editor)
