Dodging the law

Nirmal Sandhu

Imagine if Capt Amarinder Singh were the head of the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) handling a breach of the no-needle policy. He won’t act the CGF way: throw the two erring Indian athletes out of Australia on the first available flight. He would set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) and, after receiving its report, constitute another committee of bureaucrats to advise him on the next course of action. By the time he gets the considered advice, the Games would long be over and none would remember the incident or care for action taken. 

Small wonder the CGF kind of zero tolerance towards drugs is lacking in Punjab. The Chief Minister seems to believe problems go away once they move away from headlines. When 40 Congress MLAs raised the drug issue, he insisted on evidence. When evidence came in the form of ED and STF reports, dithering continued. Setting up SITs or commissions is a worn-out political tactic he continues to use to avoid taking decisions. 

Soldiers are known to talk straight, treat any act of indiscipline or law-breaking with contempt and deal sternly with it. In his previous avatar as CM, the Captain did display such soldierly traits. As a re-born politician, he had no qualms holding a holy book in hand and making a political promise — ending the drug menace in a month — that he knew he could not keep.

When the Special Task Force report on drugs found its way in media and pressure piled up for action, Capt Amarinder Singh did act, but to sideline his once trusted officer who came out with a report, probably not to the CM’s liking. To buy time, he formed a two-member committee to study the STF report. This time the dilatory tactic won’t work since the High Court is seized of the matter.

Again when a DGP-level officer deputed by the court to investigate a drug case pointed a finger at the Punjab Police chief and another senior colleague, an indignant CM summoned top police officers and gave them a dressing down. Then he did what he often does when faced with a situation: announce yet another committee to suggest ways to handle the issue.

Now treating allegations of top police officers’ involvement in the drug business merely as acts of indiscipline and silencing them with threats of dismissal is not the best way to handle a possible crime or those involved. Charges of high-level involvement in drugs require an independent, possibly court-monitored, inquiry. A panel of bureaucrats is not fit for the job. DGP Suresh Arora rightly recused himself from the committee, being on the list of suspects, though the CM did not display similar sense of right and wrong.

Anyway, the latest CAG report has already pointed to 70 per cent acquittals in drug cases. This is nothing but scandalous, indicating mass-level frame-up or compromise. All this could not have happened without the knowledge or approval of the higher-ups. And yet this has not sufficiently agitated anyone in the government to take or seek follow-up action. Congressmen seem more interested in who gets what in the proposed Cabinet expansion. 

Selective action and inaction over the past one year has created an impression that this government is soft towards high-profile drug trafficking suspects and adopts a hard line towards those pushing for action — STF head HS Sidhu, DGP Chattopadhyay, minister Navjot Sidhu and opposition leader Sukhpal Khaira, among them.

The government stand in the Navjot Sidhu case in the Supreme Court is right if it has evidence. But if it is meant to fix Sidhu for political reasons, this could backfire. For comparison, the issue of state prosecutors taking a contrary line in the corruption cases against the CM is bound to crop up. 

A glaring example of selective action relates to FIR cancellations recommended by the committee investigating vendetta cases. The action proposed is limited to low-level policemen, absolving the then DGP, Home Secretary and Home Minister of any blame as well as all those lodging false complaints on such a large scale.

Two more significant cases of inaction/biased action deserve mention. Media reports have carried names of Akali and Congress leaders having links with notorious gangsters, and yet neither the CM nor the PPCC president has cared to rid at least the Congress of such leaders. Akalis in opposition have not confronted such a friendly government in recent history.  

Then there is the case of suicide by an international karate player, Kuldeep Kaur, which has outraged Punjabis. Her brother, an Army man, has blamed a minister for the police protecting the criminals who assaulted his sister and mother over a land dispute. The SIT report, however, has attributed the suicide to family tensions and recommended withdrawal of the FIR. What axe does a serving Army man with sister dead, mother suffering from cancer and father bed-ridden have to grind by levelling a “false” charge against the minister? 

It is clear Punjab suffers from flawed governance, systemic manipulation and institutional weakness — all of which can be ascribed to the collective failure of the political, bureaucratic and police leadership. Once again, the rule of law faces a serious threat from within the system. 

Despite job security, IPS and IAS officers do not stand up to political wrongdoing. Top-level US officials have resisted President Trump’s policies, including punitive tariffs on imports from China, choosing to lose their job over decisions they disagreed with. The steel frame of India overlooks politicians mauling independent institutions.

After police and bureaucracy, Lokpal is the third institution that has been rendered ineffective. Cases involving ministers and top officers could have been handed over to it. But politicians like to run the government and its institutions with pliable officers and loyal errand boys. 

These are clear dangers to the rule of law, which puts curbs on arbitrary use of state power. It is not just about enforcing the laws passed by the legislature, but also their uniform application. Courts often recall Lord Denning’s famous words used in a 1977 case, “Be you ever so high, the law is above you”. The Punjab leadership needs to be reminded of that. 

And also of this Uttar Pradesh case. When the UP government dithered on detaining a powerful MLA charged with rape, the Allahabad High Court ordered his arrest as it found that the “law and order machinery” was “directly in league (with) and under the influence of” the accused. It is for the High Court to see if there is any substance in the allegations that the law and order machinery in Punjab too is in collusion with drug dealers.

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