The horror: Is the Chhattisgarh government wilfully disobeying the Supreme Court?

In 2011, the Supreme Court pulled up the Chhattisgarh government for promoting the activities of armed civilian vigilante groups under the guise of counter insurgency..In fact, the bench comprising SS Nijjar and Sudershan Reddy JJ. was flummoxed as to how the state condoned the deployment of Special Police Officers (SPOs) in the form of ‘Salwa Judum’ and ‘Koya Commandos’. They wrote,.“…we could not but arrive at the conclusion that the Respondents [State of Chhattisgarh] were seeking to put us on a course of constitutional actions whereby we would also have to exclaim, at the end of it all: “the horror, the horror”.”.The landmark decision in Nandini Sundar v. State of Chhattisgarh outlawed the support of such troops, and called for a CBI investigation into multiple instances of sexual violence, encounter killings and intimidation committed by these groups in the Bastar region..Five years on, however, precious little has changed. Atrocities continue to be committed against the tribals caught in the crossfire of the war against Naxalism, and it appears that the state government has done close to nothing in the way of following the Supreme Court’s directions..Now, Nandini Sundar has filed an intervention application in her own writ petition, in an attempt to catch the apex court’s attention. Her application states,.“Since June 2015, which marks the tenth anniversary of the Salwa Judum, the state of Chhattisgarh has been making a concerted effort to revive various elements that went under the name of Salwa Judum, or Jan Jagran Abhiyan as it was initially called..In spite of the Hon’ble Court’s clear injunction against the use of SPOs in counterinsurgency, and directions to investigate charges of excesses by the SPOs, the Respondent state continued to arm and use the very SPOs who had been accused of human rights violations under the name of the ‘Armed Auxiliary Force’….The erstwhile SPOs or Armed Auxiliary Forces even attacked the CBI in February 2012, which was investigating a case of attacks by SPOs and security forces on the villages of Tadmetla, Timapuram and Morpalli as directed by this Hon’ble Court.”.The application also states that a force called the District Reserve Group (DRG) was created in 2013. The DRG consists of “former Naxalites of lower cadres, Maoist sympathisers, villagers displaced during Salwa Judum”, essentially the same composition as the very SPOs and Armed Auxiliary Forces that were branded as unconstitutional bodies..These troops, often comprising young boys, lack requisite training and are driven to hunt down Naxalites by a sense of revenge..In fact, this is something the court took note of in its 2007 judgment..“Consequently, such actions of the State may be an abdication of constitutional responsibilities to provide appropriate security to citizens, by having an appropriately trained professional police force of sufficient numbers and properly equipped on a permanent basis. These are essential State functions, and cannot be divested or discharged through the creation of temporary cadres with varying degrees of State control.”.The IA also calls for the Inspector General of the Bastar region to be held accountable for these violations of human rights. It states that there has been a marked rise in encounters, arrests and surrenders since SRP Kalluri took charge in 2014..The application quotes a report released by the South Asian Terrorism Portal (SATP), which says,.“…there have been 124 arrests, 239 surrenders and 55 encounter deaths in the first three months of 2016 alone, compared to 219 arrests, 23 surrenders and 83 encounter deaths in the whole of 2013.”.Examples of such indiscretions are enlisted in the intervention application in grisly detail..Sundar also reveals that in recent times, journalists and human rights activists who are bringing to light the excesses of the security personnel in the state have fallen victim to state-sponsored persecution. A timeline of harassment of members of civil society is included in the application. It states,.“A number of vigilante groups like the Samajik Ekta Manch and Naxal Peedith Sangharash Samiti are being encouraged by the police, to intimidate and obstruct the work of journalists, human rights activists and lawyers functioning in the area, who have been exposing the violations by the security forces.”.The Samajik Ekta Manch was the group responsible for virtually driving out the Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group from Bastar. Last month, the dissolution of the group was announced after India Today released an investigation report, revealing a nexus between the state police and the group. However, in that same report, the founders of the Samajik Ekta Manch were adamant that new organizations would come into being should the existing ones be dissolved..Journalists in the state are not taking the harassment lying down. A group recently organized a protest today Jantar Mantar in Delhi, demanding the release of four journalists, who had been jailed on frivolous charges..In order to put an end to these rampant injustices, Sundar has sought the Supreme Court’s help in setting up an Independent Monitoring Committee to,.“enable reporting of fresh human rights violations, ensure proper investigation and prompt action against all those responsible for violation of fundamental rights, as well as ensure rehabilitation of the victims of state and Maoist violence, and to submit periodic reports to this Hon’ble Court.”.The hope is that this Committee would succeed where other bodies have failed thus far. The National Human Rights Commission, the National Commission for Women, the National Commission for the Scheduled Tribes and the CBI have all investigated the goings-on in the state, but are yet to release their reports..In fact, Senior Advocate Kanak Tiwari, who represented Sundar earlier, did not have very much faith in the Chhattisgarh High Court either. He says in this interview,.“In the Salwa Judum case, Nandini Sundar, who filed the case in the Supreme Court, initially asked me to file it in the High Court. But I told her that the condition in the High Court is so bad that it will be pending for years.”.Even if the Supreme Court does take note of the events in the state, it cannot be assured whether the state government will co-operate with the proposed Committee, given its track record. It is perhaps time that the apex court initiate suo motu contempt proceedings against the state..The matter will now be heard on August 2 by a bench comprising Madan Lokur and NV Ramana JJ..Read the Intervention Application:.Image taken from here.