The Supreme Court on Friday said that it would hear Sabarimala petitions on the extent of strict religious freedom available to residents over various beliefs before applying its mind as to if authorities ought to be pulled up for contempt for not complying to its 13-year-old judgment that police shouldn’t become a tool within the hands of the government and politicians.
The event came when advocate Prashant Bhushan requested for an urgent hearing of contempt petitions pending on the non-execution of the Prakash Singh judgment of September 22, 2006, which had given explicit mandates to unshackle the police from political impacts.
Mr. Bhushan made the dire notice especially within the light of analysis that the Delhi Police didn’t act with alacrity to stop violence and spare lives before and through the riots which shook the capital city of Delhi.
However, CJI Sharad A. Bobde, before whom the solicitation was made, said the court would initially hear the Sabarimala case. A nine-judge Constitution Bench has been formed to make a decision regarding the extent of religious freedom under Article 25 and on what might acclimate as basic strict practices.
It was uniquely on February 26 that Justice K.M. Joseph of the Supreme Court, while hearing the Shaheen Bagh Case, remarked on the “absence of professionalism” by the Delhi Police relating to stopping individuals from making hate speeches, which prompted the Delhi riots.
“In the event that you had not permitted people to urge away after incendiary comments, all this is capable to not have occurred,” Justice Joseph had said.
Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, who was the lead judge in the Shaheen Bagh Case, had additionally portrayed the examples of communal violence in Delhi as “deeply unfortunate”.
A third Supreme Court judge, Justice Deepak Gupta, had at an open gathering, red-flagged the rising number of sedition cases against activists, attorneys and students and marking voices of dissent as “anti-nationals”. Expressing dissent to government’s policies did not amount to acting against the nation, he had said.
The Prakash Singh judgment had held that “responsibility, dedication and commitment of the police need to be just towards the rule of law”.
“The supervision and control have to be such that it ensures that the police serves the people without any regard, whatsoever, to the status and position of any person while investigating a crime or taking preventive measures,” the Supreme Court had held in Prakash Singh Judgement in 2006.
The pinnacle court had underlined that the approach of the police ought to be service-oriented. The police should not act in such a way that the rule of law became a casualty. If the police crossed the limits of the law, the guilty among them should be brought to book.
The judgment had mentioned ‘Political and Administrative Manipulation of the Police‘ published in 1979 by Bureau of Police Research and Development, cautioning that inordinate control of the politicians and its key personnel over the police has the inborn danger of creating the police, a device for subverting the rule of law, promoting the expansion of dictatorship and shaking the very establishments of government and the democracy.
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