The Judgement of the Supreme Court opens as following: “We, the people as a nation, constituted ourselves as a sovereign democratic republic to conduct our affairs within the four corners of the Constitution.” The Court came down heavily on the Chhattisgarh government and the Centre for appointing tribals as Special Police Officers (SPOs) and training them to counter Maoists and held the action to be “unconstitutional”.

A bench comprising Justices B Sudershan Reddy and S S Nijjar said: “As we heard the instant matters before us, we could not but help be reminded of the novella, “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad, who perceived darkness at three levels: (1) the darkness of the forest, representing a struggle for life and the sublime; (ii) the darkness of colonial expansion for resources; and finally (iii) the darkness, represented by inhumanity and evil, to which individual human beings are capable of descending, when supreme and unaccounted force is vested, rationalized by a warped world view that parades itself as pragmatic and inevitable, in each individual level of command."

A petition seeking a direction to the State government to refrain from allegedly supporting Salwa Judum was filed by sociologist Nandini Sundar, historian Ramachandra Guha, former bureaucrat E.A.S. Sarma and others.

The Court described the situation in Chhattisgarh as undoubtedly deeply distressing to any reasonable person. The Court further mentioned what was doubly dismaying to them was the repeated insistence, by the respondents, that the only option for the State was to rule with an iron fist, establish a social order in which every person is to be treated as suspect, and any one speaking for human rights of citizens to be deemed as suspect, and a Maoist.

The Court held that appointment of SPOs to perform any of the duties of regular police officers, other than those specified in Section 23(1)(h) and Section 23(1)(i) of Chattisgarh Police Act, 2007, to be unconstitutional.

The Court also ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation to immediately take over the investigation of, and taking appropriate legal actions against all individuals responsible for:

(i)The incidents of violence alleged to have occurred, in March 2011, in the three villages, Morpalli, Tadmetla and Timmapuram, all located in the Dantewada District or its neighboring areas;

(ii)The incidents of violence alleged to have been committed against Swami Agnivesh, and his companions, during their visit to State of Chattisgarh in March 2011.

The Hindu reports “The  Chhattisgarh government is considering its legal options and is “almost certain” to seek a review of the July 5 order of the Supreme Court that prevents the State from using Special Police Officers (SPOs) in anti-Maoist operations, according to a person briefed on the matter.”

Sumita Hazarika, Menaka Guruswamy and Bipin Aspatwar appeared for the petitioners.  Gopal Subramanium appeared for Union of India.  Senior Advocate Colin Gonsalves also appeared for one of the petitioners.  State of Chhattisgarh was represented by Dr. Manish Singhvi .

The Apex Court is most likely to dismiss the review petition considering the fact that they have criticised the State Government as well as the Central Government very much for deploying SPO’s to combat Maoists.

Salwa Judum Unconstitutional