Tearing off law, an insult to the nation!

Following the footsteps of AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi who had torn off a copy of the Citizenship Amendment Act

(CAA) in the parliament last year, the Chief Minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal too, enacted the same drama on December 17 while tearing off the copies of three enactments passed by the parliament for the welfare of farmers.

After the abhorrent act of Owaisi, large scale prolonged demonstrations followed by communal violence had erupted in Delhi. However, it still remains to be seen what will be the fallout of Kejriwal's act. Clearly such tantrums of the people occupying the Constitutional positions send out a definite message to their followers. And consequently, if the protest turns violent, prima facie these political leaders must be held responsible and tried as the main accused in the courts.

The Central government seems to have been caught between the devil and the deep sea. On the one hand, it has the Constitutional duty to maintain law and order and protect life and property of the people in general and on the other, it has to take care of the ruling party's political interests. Happily, in the ongoing protests ostensibly by the farmers, the Apex court has taken lead to resolve the matter impartially and amicably unlike Shaheen Bagh demonstrations where it had obviously taken a long time to intervene.

Undoubtedly, as the Supreme Court has said, in the scheme of our Constitution every citizen has a right to protest and express dissent, but all this should be in a peaceful manner. The Apex court has also rightly reminded the agitators that while staging the protest they should also keep in mind that other people too, have a right to live peacefully without any hindrance.

Unfortunately, the organisers of agitations hardly show any concern about other non-agitating people which eventually leads to frustration in the minds of the vast majority of non-agitating people. Such a volatile situation often ends up in violent clashes and loss of property and precious human life. The soft- peddalling of the explosive situation by administration, obviously at the behest of political bosses results in to chaos and ultimately break down of the Constitutional machinery.

The makers of our Constitution had already anticipated such a situation. Therefore, in Article 355 they incorporated a duty of the Union government "to protect every State against external aggression and internal disturbance" and in the next Article 356 provided the solution to deal with such situations. Again, the VII Schedule to the Constitution has given a complete list of the subjects who shall be exclusively in the Union's domain.

The subjects, inter alia, include, preventive detention to ensure the security of India (Sl.No. 9), citizenship, naturalization and Aliens (Sl.No.17), Extradition (Sl.No.18) and admission into, and immigration and expulsion from India (Sl.No.19). Further, Sl.No.93 specifically empowers the Union (meaning, the Central government) to deal with all the offences against laws with respect to any of the matters in the Union List besides residual powers under Sl.No. 97.

In short, while tearing off the copies of lawfully enacted statutes by the legislature is undoubtedly an act of insulting the democratic institutions and thereby the people of the country. Abdication of its Constitutional duty is equally the offence of dereliction of duty by the Central government cast upon it by the Constitution of India. And the people will never pardon either of them.

Let the Apex court and the President of India take serious note of the fact that the people are fed up with frequently staged tamashas resulting into large-scale violence and loss of property and authorities playing fiddle like Nero when Rome was burning. Therefore, it is high time that the guilty are dealt with iron hand and due alacrity.

SC: Don't spare violators of covid-19 safety norms

The Supreme Court on December 18 came down heavily on the violators of the safety norms, called the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) and insisted on their strict implementation.

A slew of guidelines has been issued by a bench comprising Justice Ashok Bhushan, Justice Subhash Reddy and Justice M R Shah which if followed in letter and spirit could save many lives. The court observed that safety and health of the citizens was more important than anything else and directed the authorities to ensure strict adherence to the SOP by all people irrespective of their status.

ALLAHABAD HC DISHES OUT A GOOD VERDICT FOR COOKS

At last some sweet news for the cooks appointed under midday meal scheme in government and semi government schools.

Terming the payment of meagre Rs.1,000 p.m. for a period of 14 years as forced labour, Justice Pankaj Bhatia of the Allahabad High Court held that it attracts Article 23 of the Constitution.

In a landmark judgement, in Chandrawati vs. State of Uttar Pradesh and 6 others the high court on December 15 directed the respondents to enforce the Minimum Wages Act for the cooks employed in the government and semi government schools under the midday meal scheme. The court also directed for the payment of arrears for full 14 years within four months.

Hopefully, the judgement will also apply to the similarity placed other categories of workers covered by the Minimum Wages Act.

DELHI HC ON FALSE PROMISE OF MARRIAGE

In a verdict of far reaching consequences Justice Vibhu Bakhru of Delhi High Court has held that repeated sexual contact for a long period of time even after realising that the man had made the false promise of marriage, does not amount to rape.

Dismissing the appeal filed by X against the State (Govt of Delhi) & others the Court observed that such a relationship could be termed as consensual sex and does not fit in the definition of rape. Further, in this particular case there was an inordinate delay of 640 days. Considering these two factors the court dismissed the appeal.

The judgement indeed, comes to the rescue of several men who have been hauled up in false litigations by their female partners due to a variety of factors. The historic 'Me Too' had witnessed some flimsy allegations of rape made after 30-40 years of the alleged incident. More often the allegations of rape and cheating through false promise of marriage are made to average some other matters or just to extort money from the male partner.

Now that the present government has taken up the massive overhaul of civil and criminal laws, it can be expected that stringent punishment shall be provided for making baseless and defamatory allegations so that tendency to file false cases is curtailed.