The Hindu : Plea on hartals referred to full Bench

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 01, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Kerala

Plea on hartals referred to full Bench

By Our staff Reporter

KOCHI MARCH.31. A writ petition seeking to declare unconstitutional the holding of hartals by political parties and other organisations was referred to a Full Bench by a Division Bench of the Kerala High Court.

The Bench comprising the Chief Justice J. L. Gupta and Justice Kurian Joseph also issued notices to all the political parties, including the CPI(M), the Congress and the BJP. The petition was filed by M. K. Sasidaran, president of the International Society for Preservation of Human Rights and Rule of Law. K. Radhakrishnan, senior counsel, took notice on behalf of the Election Commission. The petition had been posted to June 5.

The petitioner said that the Supreme Court had already declared that calling for bandh was violative of the fundamental rights of the citizen. The same principles were applicable to calling for hartal. In fact, bandh had now assumed the name of hartal as the former had been declared illegal. Normal life was disrupted during hartals and even shops were forced to down their shutters. Hartals had the same effect of bandhs. It amounted to coercing the public to keep indoors, without doing any work. Therefore, call for hartals was violative of Article 14(equality before law) and 21(right to life) of the Constitution.

The petitioner pointed out that political parties registered under Section 29 A of the Representation of People Act should be de-registered by the Election Commission if they had acted contrary to the regulations. Undoubtedly, a political party was breaching the principles of democracy by calling for hartals. They were violating the mandate of Article 142 in disobeying the law laid down by the Supreme Court.

The mandate of Article 51A to eschew violence and safeguard public property was part of the fundamental duties of the citizen and political parties. Thus, the political parties had no right to call a hartal as it entailed cancellation of registration granted to them by the Election Commission.

In the recent hartals, the estimated loss came to more than Rs. 10 crores. However, the Government had not taken steps to recover the compensations from the parties indulged in destruction of public property.

The petition also sought a directive to the Election Commission to take steps to cancel the registration of the CPI(M), the CPI, the Kerala Congress(Joseph Group), the Janata Dal, the RSP and the Congress as they had acted in violation of the Constitution and breached the principles of democracy, as contemplated under section 29A of the Representation of the People Act by holding hartals recently.

The petition prayed for a directive to the State Government to assess the damages sustained by it during the two hartals held on March 11 and 15 called by the LDF and realise the losses from the LDF constituents.

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