The Madras High Court Bench here on Tuesday wanted to know from an Additional Advocate General the reason for the “historic, enviable and peaceful” protests across the State in favour of jallikattu having ended in a bad note on January 23, the seventh day of the agitation, though the police had shown absolute restraint for six long days.
Justice N. Kirubakaran raised the question during the hearing of an anticipatory bail application preferred by one of the protesters in a case booked by the city police here. Extolling the protesters for maintaining absolute discipline and the police for permitting the peaceful protests for six days, the judge asked: “What went wrong at the last moment?”
Replying to it, AAG B. Pugalendhi said, some anti-social elements attempted to hijack the protests. Not convinced with the reply, the judge said the law enforcers should have devised a mechanism to identify intrusion of such elements right at the entry point and isolate them from genuine protesters such as college students and people from other walks of life.
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Stating that he too was a common man who follows the media closely, the judge said that news reports suggest two theories for the police having used force against the protesters. “Either you wanted to send a stern message against such mass gatherings in the future or there must have been efforts from some quarters to tarnish the image of the government,” he added.
When the judge probed further to know who could have wanted to bring disrepute to the State, the AAG said: “Everybody knows that.”
Immediately, Mr. Justice Kirubakaran chipped in to quip: “The efforts need not have been necessarily taken by some outsiders, it could have been taken by insiders too.” The entire court hall broke into laughter on hearing this.
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Appreciating Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam for having acted swiftly on the issue by promulgating an ordinance for the conduct of jallikattu, the judge said: “To my knowledge, no law has ever been passed in the State at such a short time. The only mistake you did was to have literally translated the term ordinance in Tamil as ‘ Avasara Sattam’ while issuing a public statement.
“The use of the word ‘ Avasara ’ meaning emergent led to a mistaken impression among the protesters that it was a temporary relief being provided to hoodwink them. That is why they started demanding a Nirandhara Theervu (permanent solution). You should have simply said that a Sattam (law) has been passed without using the prefix Avasara.”