In a bid to check the huge damage caused to public properties due to sporadic agitations, the Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Centre to explore the feasibility of setting up a Central agency to co-ordinate among the various law enforcing agencies to take timely action for saving the national assets from any damage. The top court made the suggestion to Solicitor General of India during the hearing of a petition on Haryana’s Mirchpur violence against dalits. An agitation by a section of “Jat community” against police action against some youth from the community for the attack on Dalits had resulted in the estimated loss of `33 crore to the Railways.
In this context, a bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and S.J. Mukhopadhaya also referred to several other agitations, including the “Jat agitation” on reservation blocking Bharatpur-Agra rail track and national highway for several days and Gorkha agitation in Darjeeling in West Bengal, which continued for several months.
The top court pointed out that the damage of `33 as estimated by Railways due to the agitation on Mirchpur issue could not be prevented due to proper co-ordination among various law enforcing agencies, including the central security process, the Haryana police and the Railway police despite the fact that the agitation was very close to the national capital.
If the security forces were not able to prevent such damage to the public properties in the central part of the country, close to the national capital where deployment should have been far easier, how could they prevent it in far-flung areas, the bench pointed out. In view of this, the top court felt the need of a Central agency, which could co-ordinate with various law enforcing agencies regarding their deployment as well as taking timely steps to stop any damage to the national assets caused due to uncontrolled hooliganism during such mobilisations by agitators.