In this piece, Jus­tice Ajit Singh Bains de­lin­eates the re­la­tion­ship be­tween rule of law and those who are sup­posed to main­tain law and or­der. He dwells on how power with­out re­spon­si­bil­ity cre­ates a sit­u­a­tion suit­able to the state and milked by the state agen­cies. The fun­da­men­tal rights in the In­dian Con­sti­tu­tion are in­spired by the world’s no­blest ideals. Its phi­los­o­phy is that free in­sti­tu­tions can be main­tained with­out abridg­ing the fun­da­men­tal free­doms of its cit­i­zens. This is the heart of the sys­tem on which our free­doms de­pend. And this kind of arrange­ment no despot ac­cepts. To end pri­vate vi­o­lence and to en­force its law, the state or­gan­ises the armed group of men by what­ever name it may be called. Arms give the cut­ting edge to the brute strength of man.

THE WEAK­EST OF MEN CAN IM­POSE HIS WILL ON THE STRONGEST OF MEN IF SUF­FI­CIENTLY ARMED. Pru­dence dic­tates that such armed men be kept un­der a closed guard lest they make their wishes the law, and en­force it with the su­pe­rior power of their arms. Unchecked power brings out the worst of mankind.

The wis­dom of the ages, af­ter ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the tyranny of armed men, de­vised an al­ter­na­tive mode of gov­er­nance – the civil­ian con­trol of armed men. This is the ba­sis of our ad­min­is­tra­tion and the law.

The first chap­ter of Pun­jab Po­lice Rules de­clares in no un­cer­tain terms:

“1.15 The Dis­trict Mag­is­trate is the head of the crim­i­nal ad­min­is­tra­tion of the dis­trict, and the po­lice force is the in­stru­ment pro­vided by the gov­ern­ment to en­able him to en­force his au­thor­ity and ful­fil his re­spon­si­bil­ity for the main­te­nance of law and or­der.”

The rules fur­ther make it clear that the po­lice are placed by law un­der the con­trol and di­rec­tion of the Dis­trict Mag­is­trate and he is re­quired to in­spect po­lice sta­tions. The Pun­jab po­lice rules have not been changed or amended. This is still the law of the land. Yet we are fac­ing a re­verse sit­u­a­tion where po­lice think the law is what it wishes.

This is the same process by which well-gov­erned so­ci­eties fall into de­cline and then sink into dic­ta­tor­ships.

In the be­gin­ning, in­com­pe­tent rulers, in their des­per­a­tion, them­selves go against the law and close their eyes to the armed men not fol­low­ing the law. Their or­ders are: show re­sults; never mind the law! Grad­u­ally, the armed men for­get to show re­sults with the law. That is tyranny. The gov­ern­ment then works on fear, whose only aim is to keep peo­ple un­der tenor and per­pet­u­ate its own rule. All op­po­si­tion is brushed aside and the lamp of lib­erty shines not.

The blind men in power (po­lice and po­lit­i­cal) saw not its con­se­quences and agreed. The tie rope, which had been put around the armed men’s neck, was slack­ened a lit­tle. The process went on, each fail­ure was blamed on law, and more con­trol was set aside.

In Pun­jab, the po­lice and ad­min­is­tra­tion were mis­used for par­ti­san ends for so long that the pub­lic dis­con­tent man­i­fested it­self in wide­spread anger. It could have taken any di­rec­tion but it was led in one par­tic­u­lar path, for it seemed, at that time, to the two prin­ci­pal par­ties that it is in their short term in­ter­est. The rulers rep­ri­manded the po­lice and re­ceived a short re­ply for its fail­ure: the law is too strin­gent over them, re­lax it a lit­tle bit for them, and see re­sults, they gen­tly in­sisted.

The blind men in power saw not its con­se­quences and agreed. The tie rope, which had been put around the armed men’s neck, was slack­ened a lit­tle. The process went on, each fail­ure was blamed on law, and more con­trol was set aside.

The new un­ac­count­abil­ity led to more crime but was not no­ticed in the gen­eral un­rest. The lo­cal in­sti­tu­tions like pan­chay­ats were de­val­ued first, fol­lowed by courts. Pro­fes­sion­als like doc­tors and lawyers’ protests were in­ef­fec­tive. Jour­nal­ists were si­lenced by the sim­ple ex­pe­di­ent of killing the most vo­cal one. The same trick was tried on lawyers. And fi­nally, it came to the ad­min­is­tra­tion it­self. The of­fi­cers were hu­mil­i­ated when they dared to visit the po­lice sta­tion as if it were pri­vate prop­erty.

Re­flect over the words of em­i­nent ju­rist and Chief Jus­tice of the US Supreme Court -Jus­tice Evans Hughes:

“The greater the im­por­tance of safe­guard­ing the com­mu­nity from in­cite­ment to the over­throw of our in­sti­tu­tions by force and vi­o­lence, the more im­per­a­tive is the need to pre­serve in­vi­o­late the Con­sti­tu­tional right of free speech, free press and free as­sem­bly in or­der to main­tain the op­por­tu­nity of free po­lit­i­cal dis­cus­sion, to the end that gov­ern­ment may be re­spon­sive to the will of the peo­ple and that changes, if de­sired, may be ob­tained by peace­ful means. Therein lies the se­cu­rity of the Re­pub­lic, the very foun­da­tion of Con­sti­tu­tional gov­ern­ment.”

These words came out when the very right to life was not in ques­tion in the USA as in Pun­jab to­day. The Ter­ror­ist Act [the Ter­ror­ist and Dis­r­putive Ac­tiv­i­ties (Pre­ven­tion)] Act does not au­tho­rise po­lice of­fi­cials to com­pile lists for elim­i­na­tion. Nor does TADA per­mit the kind of es­cape of pris­on­ers which po­lice had made into a per­verse art.

Fright­en­ing rev­e­la­tions have come from the state it­self. The PCS of­fi­cers strike has proved what hu­man rights or­ga­ni­za­tions have been cry­ing for so long. The de­mon had started eat­ing its own chil­dren.

In Pun­jab to­day, each po­lice sta­tion has be­come a me­dieval cas­tle where the worst of crimes is com­mit­ted with state sanc­tion. The sta­tions are out of bounds for all peo­ple ex­cept the crim­i­nals them­selves. The mag­is­trate can’t visit them; ju­di­cial of­fi­cers are too timid to in­ter­fere.

This ar­ti­cle was pub­lished in The Sikh Re­view in April 1994. This ar­ti­cle was re­trieved from the archives of the Pan­jab Dig­i­tal Li­brary.

 

Cap­tured deadly weapons like AK 47 are not ac­counted for. No list was made for de­posit in ar­mouries. Who is us­ing it and to what ends? Po­lice of­fi­cials us­ing the cap­tured ve­hi­cles for what use, no one knows. Each po­lice sta­tion has be­come a me­dieval cas­tle where the worst of crimes is com­mit­ted with state sanc­tion. The sta­tions are out of bounds for all peo­ple ex­cept the crim­i­nals them­selves. The mag­is­trate can’t visit them; ju­di­cial of­fi­cers are too timid to in­ter­fere.

The sa­cred writ of habeas cor­pus made a fu­tile for­mal­ity by a sim­ple ex­pe­di­ent of post­ing of in­tel­li­gence of­fi­cers in the reg­istry of the High Court. The mo­ment a habeas writ is filed, a wire­less mes­sage is flashed to the con­cerned po­lice sta­tion to shift the con­fined men else­where.

How does the High Court be­have? It sim­ply be­lieves the worth­less af­fi­davits of po­lice and lets the mat­ter rest.

How does the High Court be­have? It sim­ply be­lieves the worth­less af­fi­davits of po­lice and lets the mat­ter rest.

Every­one knows peo­ple by the tens of thou­sands were mur­dered every day by the state agen­cies.

But how to keep this flame of lib­erty burn­ing when each state of­fi­cer is faith­less to­ward the law and knows not that the fire of law­less­ness even­tu­ally con­sumes every­one.

Jus­tice Ajit Singh Bains passed away on 11 Feb­ru­ary 2022. He was a hu­man rights cham­pion through­out his life.