NGOs Send Their Own People For Fact Finding; Find Fault With Security Forces For Killing Maoists : Solicitor General Tells Supreme Court

The Solicitor-General of India on Monday opposed a petition which sought independent probe into the 2013 Edesmetta encounter killings in Chhattisgarh and said that he will file an application seeking prosecution of the petitioner for making false statements.Appearing for for the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Solicitor General urged a Bench of Justices M.R. Shah and M.M. Sundresh, to follow the precedent in Himanshu Kumar versus Union of India and others where the Court imposed 5 lakhs cost on the petitioner who alleged false encounter killings of tribals in Chhattisgarh by security forces and allowed investigation against the petitioner for perjury and fabrication of evidence.SG called for a similar approach with respect to the present petition as well, which was filed in 2013 by tribal rights activist Degree Prasad Chouhan"Earlier, what would happen is that petitions would be filed only on the basis of newspaper reports. This court stopped entertaining such petition"s, the Solicitor-General submitted, "What these NGOs do now is, they send their own people as a part of the fact-finding team. The team come to the predetermined conclusion in their reports, and a petition is filed based on the findings of the reports, which are then entertained by this court. We have to ultimately point out that the findings were arrived at by their fact-finding team." "This is what happened in this case," Mehta vehemently asserted.The top law officer relied on a counter-affidavit filed by the Ministry of Home Affairs in March 2014. "Fortunately, this is the consistent stand of the central government. The fight against Naxalism is consistent," the Solicitor-General maintained. The affidavit in question detailed the "violent ideology" professed by the Communist Party of India (Maoist), which is a banned radical leftist political outfit and militant organisation that endeavours to overthrow the "semi-colonial and semi-feudal Indian state" by a protracted "people's war" against the democratically elected government. To that end, the CPI (Maoist) employs "a combination of armed insurrection, mass mobilisation of certain sections of society, and tactical partnership with other insurgent groups operating in other parts of the country", the Solicitor-General quoted from the affidavit.To drive the point home, Mehta took the court through the three-pronged strategy of the Maoists outlined in a manual entitled "Strategy and Tactics of the Indian Revolution", especially highlighting their scheme of mobilising certain targeted sections of the population, especially the Urban population, through its "mass organisations" or "front organisations". "The mass organisations mostly operate under the garb of human rights non-governmental organisations and are organically linked to the CPI (Maoist) party structure but maintain separate identities in an attempt to avoid legal liabilities. These mass organisers are manned by ideologues which include academicians and activists, fully committed to the party line," Mehta read out. The government counter-affidavit, referring to "The Manifesto of Naxalism", further stated, "Many such mass organisations are active in different parts of India, working for the CPI (Maoist) party in different ways. Such organisations also function under the garb of NGOs, especially pursuing human rights issues, and are adept at using the legal process of the Indian state to undermine and emasculate enforcement action by the security forces, and thereby, further the cause of revolution.""In almost every instance of the exchange of fire between the Maoist and the security forces resulting in the death of Maoist cadre in any state, such human rights organisations send fact-finding teams and invariably come to the conclusion that the security forces are at fault," Mehta read out an excerpt from the affidavit. He added, "This is what happened in this case."Earlier this year, in July, a Bench of Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and J.B. Pardiwala refused to direct an independent investigation into the alleged extra-judicial killings of Chhattisgarh tribals by the Indian security forces. Not only did not Centre deny the claims of the petitioners, but it also filed an application seeking perjury proceedings against the petitioners for creating a false narrative. The apex court, while imposing an exemplary cost of Rs. 5 lakh on the first petitioner, also left it open to the state government and the CBI to pursue other remedies against the petitioners for making false charges and criminal conspiracy.Mehta assailed the present petition by placing heavy reliance on the earlier judgement of the top court. He recalled, "A similar petitioner came to this court with 10 affected people, presenting a very brutal picture of the security forces. The court took it very seriously and rightly because gruesome incidents were narrated." When the affected parties were unable to communicate with the Bench because of the language barrier, the District...

NGOs Send Their Own People For Fact Finding; Find Fault With Security Forces For Killing Maoists : Solicitor General Tells Supreme Court

Awstika Das

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