SC raps Centre for shielding Thackeray

The statements by the ministers annoyed the court as they deviate sharply from an affidavit filed earlier by the Central Government on a public interest litigation PIL seeking action on the Srikrishna Commission inquiry ordered by the Maharashtra Government into the Mumbai riots of 1992-93.

The charges against Thackeray 8212; the case which the Maharashtra Government has decided to re-open 8212; that he made inflammatory statements promoting enmity between communities, is covered by the Srikrishna commission as well.

While the Ministers, over the past few days, have been making statements that the Centre can step in and stop the state government from arresting Thackeray, the Government8217;s affidavit filed in September 1999 said just the opposite. It asserted that 8220;the Central Government is not the appropriate Government either to implement the findings of the Commission or to conduct prosecution and it cannot also direct the state Government8230;since the jurisdiction of the appropriate Government is exclusive under the law as well as in practice.8221;

The court rebuked the Government when the PIL came up for hearing today, for the first time since the Maharashtra Government gave its sanction earlier in the week for Thackeray8217;s prosecution under Section 153-A IPC.

8220;Is there something known as collective responsibility of the Government? We have hardly come across any civilised Government behaving like this,8221; the court told Attorney General Soli Sorabjee. The judges said firmly that the Government could not say one thing to the court and an altogether different thing to the public.

Sorabjee sought to retrieve the situation by assuring the court that the Government still stood by the affidavit filed before it, that the Centre still believed that it had no say on the action to be taken on the Sri Krishna Commission report.

But the court nevertheless directed the Centre to file a fresh affidavit within six weeks to spell out its stand on the issue in clear terms. The Maharashtra Government was also asked to file an affidavit by the same date in view of its tardy action on the inquiry report.

8220;You appoint a high court judge and this is the way you treat his report,8221; the bench told the Maharashtra Government8217;s counsel, Ashok Desai. When a commission of inquiry holds a certain person prima facie responsible for the riots, the logical corollary is to prosecute them, it observed.

Desai explained that the present state Government had already reversed the decision of its predecessor the Shiv Sena-BJP Government and referred the report to the Crime branch of the police for further action. He also assured the court that the police would in no way be influenced by the previous Government8217;s rejection of most of the findings.

But the court clarified that the police should only investigate the cases recommended and not attempt any 8220;reassessment8221; of the inquiry report. The PIL filed by the Action Committee for the Implementation of the Sri Krishna Commission Report seeks quashing of the action taken report ATR of the previous Maharashtra Government on the ground that it encouraged 8220;communal forces and shielded those found guilty for spreading communal riots.8221;

The Shiv Sena-BJP Government had rejected the Sri Krishna report saying it was 8220;anti-Hindu and biased.8221; The Srikrishna report had indicted, among others, Thackeray and Manohar Joshi.

Besides Justice Anand, the bench included Justice R C Lahoti and Justice K G Balakrishnan.