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Administering injustice in Ukhrul
The Manipur Human Rights Commission team's visits to the police stations at Litan, Ukhrul, Phungyar and Sangshak last month poses some very critical questions on the functioning and the legitimacy of the Administration of Justice mechanisms in Manipur. Interestingly, in a State utterly obsessed with 'law and order', the team reportedly found the newly constructed Ukhrul police station building was uninhabitable and that unarmed police personnel were manning the police stations at Phungyar and Sangshak. The Supreme Court directives on Do's and Don’ts of the conduct of police personnel concerning the arrest of civilians have yet to reach the police stations, which were found not maintaining proper diaries or records of FIR's filed with arrests, according to media-persons who accompanied the Commission's members.
The Commission had a field day when they also reportedly discovered that, worse, the personnel of Sangshak Police Station and the residents of Sangshak have to obtain prior permission from authorities of the 25 Assam Rifles to exercise their fundamental freedoms of movement guaranteed by Indian law and international treaties that India has entered into more than twenty years ago. If these reports are true, the derogation of the right to free movement and right to liberty and security of a person, possible only when a state of emergency has been formally enforced, in a so-designated "peacetime" situation are serious oversteps of the government's mandate, responsibility and duties regarding the rule of law. As a means of ushering in "peace and security", keeping the public immobilized is surely a highly innovative and novel method in the annals of public affairs and good governance!
The Constitution of India and concomitant national legislation is fairly clear about a citizen's fundamental rights. These rights are justiciable and closely protected by the judiciary. At the same time, the conduct of the "long arm of the law", that is, the administration of justice must be carried out under strictly circumscribed rules and guidelines so that abuse of power is restrained to the maximum extent possible. The two aspects of civil and political rights are inseparable. This facet of the discoveries of the Commission in Ukhrul District attracted little media attention; in fact the lack of safe drinking water and sanitation services enjoyed much more coverage. This is interesting because, customarily, the media and public in Manipur fall within the conservative worldwide perception that socio-economic rights are "second generation" rights. Killings, rapes, "disappearances", arbitrary arrests and other forms of violence and conflict have hogged our front pages for years, while the vicious challenges to people's livelihoods, environment, health and education have taken a cynical back-seat.
Throughout India, and increasingly in our region since the last half a century, we are witnessing an increasing pauperization of our rural population. Poverty is one of the key factors determining vulnerability to human rights violations perpetrated by state officials and opportunities for redress. In this perspective, there is no clearer demonstration of the fact that all human rights are indivisible, inter-related and inter-dependent. We also recall the innumerable petitions, memoranda, press releases and other appeals from various civil society organizations of Ukhrul over the past decades attempting to draw the attention of the "higher authorities" to their plight; and cannot but remark how true the earlier premise is. Unfortunately, the inhabitants of Ukhrul District also serve as a very regrettable example of what the inhabitants of large areas of Manipur would be in for soon if we are not aware of the dynamics and take some collective effective action.
It is not within the realm of this brief article to comprehensively discuss the ramifying interlinked civil and political rights issues brought up by the Commissions' mobile bench of March. However, a few of the crucial cross-linked issues cannot be left untouched. One of the consuming issues of Manipur is the extraordinarily intrepid legislation known as the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. The majority of us today have been born and grown into adulthood in the mad-dog days of this law. Ukhrul injected a fresh element into our harping "old-hat" perceptions on the long-term effects of this law - one on the administration of justice.
India's legal edifice is very bulky, according to Amnesty International. The Indian Constitution's Part III that deals with fundamental rights has 35 articles, out of which, as many as 23 articles, if not more, deal with civil and political rights. Of these, the questions of equality before the law and freedom figure prominently. Derived from these, India has a well-developed Criminal Procedures and Penal codes. Like its population, legal protections for the citizens of India have continuous proliferated. But these are nullified by the effect of other legislation or are not consistently applied. The divergence between constitutional and legislative protection and the ground realities is widening and worsened by a dawdling legal process.
Two operative articles, Article 2[2] and 2[3] of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), deserve some attention. According to the former, "[W]here not already provided for by existing legislation or other measurers, each State Party to the present Covenant undertakes to take the necessary steps, in accordance with its constitutional processes and with the provisions of the present Covenant, to adopt such legislative or other measures as may be necessary to give effect to the rights recognized in the present Covenant." Further, according to the latter article, each State Party undertakes to ensure an effective remedy to the violation of rights or freedoms in the Covenant, determined by competent judicial, administrative or legislative authorities, or by any other competent authority; and to develop the possibilities of judicial remedy including enforcement of such remedies when granted.
When policemen are unarmed, police stations are in shambles, records of arrests and FIRs not maintained as laid down by procedure and the movement by Manipur's police force are at the behest of other temporarily and partially empowered forces, the moot question is whether the administrative machinery of the government has altogether abdicated its duties to its citizens over the past two odd score years of the Armed Forces (Special Power) Act. When no competent administrative authority is within the reach of the citizens of Ukhrul District, how can effective and judicial remedies for any person whose rights or freedoms are violated be possible? This should indeed be a very worrying question for the government and the judiciary of Manipur. It is not wonder that Ukhrul resists and resents the frequent shuffles of its Deputy Commissioners. In fact, the DC had become the sole, perhaps symbolic, embodiment of a "competent authority" in Ukhrul!!
This is a tremendous and tragic regression in governance. In 1995 and 1996, the Law Commission of India circulated questionnaires relating to the IPC and CrPC, which sought opinion from lawyers and other concerned individuals on proposed amendments. Included in the questionnaire were questions relating to the punishment of non-registration of First Information Reports (FIR). In its 154th report, the Commission made many progressive recommendations to the IPC and CrPC. Also, between 1979 and 1981, the National Police Commission made a series of detailed recommendations relating to the selection of police officers, their training, supervision, working conditions and pay, and proposed an effective machinery to investigate human rights violations by the police. It also recommended that a special unit should be created in the Home Ministry to examine and implement these recommendations. Nothing effective has happened.
In terms of remedies, notwithstanding the extensive provisions available in the general criminal and civil laws of India as well as through constitutional provisions, full redress of human rights violations have not been forthcoming. There are three recognized components to redress, namely, investigation, prosecution of the perpetrators and compensation. The implementation of those laws that do conform to international standards for the protection of human rights is compromised by a legal system that does not meet the requisite level of competence. The reported situation in Ukhrul's police machinery reveals huge gaping holes in the areas of possible competent investigation and prosecution of the perpetrators of human rights violations. This is not helped by a system that is also prone to lengthy delays and does not provide for easy access to justice. Clearly, this regression mitigates against those who are economically heavily compromised (read, the inhabitants of Ukhrul).
If there were any doubts remaining that the legal system has not withstood the long situation of internal armed conflict in Manipur the reports from Ukhrul have dispelled them totally. Orders from even the highest court of the land have been disregarded when the Do's and Don’ts included in the 1997 Supreme Court judgment fail to reach the police of Ukhrul. The signs of this breakdown have been around for some time now. Few may recall a habeas corpus related writ of the Imphal Bench of the Gauhati High Court in 1996. The Chief Secretary and Joint Secretary of the Home Department of the Government of Manipur and the Thoubal District Magistrate was found guilty of contempt of court and sentenced to imprisonment for two months, when the court found that Kh. Brojen Singh had been illegally detained by the State for a total of 76 days. The implementation of the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1952 is now facing increasing obstacles due to non-cooperation by the administrative machinery, even though its findings are not binding, nor do they automatically result in prosecution.
The Manipur Human Rights Commission is now perceived as intervening on an increasing number and range of human rights violations in the State. However, it can never replace the judicial system, so dear to democracy. But where can the people of Ukhrul turn to when democratically established institutions are administering injustice?
(A Core e-Human Rights Feature)
(Courtesy: The Imphal Free Press) |
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