In one of the sternest warnings to any state government in recent time on enforcing the rule of law, the Supreme Court on Monday ticked the Bhupinder Singh Hooda led Congress government in Haryana for its soft approach toward the pre-dominant “Jat” community on atrocities against dalits in Mirchpur. “Unless rule of law prevails, this court will take drastic steps, the kind of which was not seen so far. The muscle power cannot prevail on the rule of law. This is our clear message to your government,” a bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly told Haryana’s Advocate-General H.S. Hooda.
The strong warning came form the top court in view of the continued agitation by Jats against booking of nearly 98 youths of the community by the state police in connection with the attack on dalits in Mirchpur village in April last year. A 70-year-old dalit man and his physically-challenged granddaughter were killed in the arson while several houses were burnt.
The Jat community had been agitating for the past two weeks against the police action and transfer of the case to Delhi by the apex court, disrupting rail and road traffic. Directing the Haryana chief secretary and general manager, Northern Railway, to file affidavits within two weeks detailing the losses suffered due to blockade by the agitators, the court asked the state government to further explain the action taken regarding removal of the obstacles in the free flow of trains and vehicular traffic in the affected areas.
“Pleas mark our words, we can’t allow one community (violate rights of other). The court cannot be a mute spectator to the show of the muscle at the cost of the constitutional principles,” the bench said asking the A-G “whether members of one community have started using strong arms tactics to brow beat the government?”
“We will not tolerate this persistent attitude of any community denying the absolute constitutional right to live with dignity to the other community,” the top court said, while pointing towards the emerging tendency among the state governments in the region of succumbing to the “brute muscle power”. In this regard it referred to Gujjars’ agitation in Rajasthan.