Rajasthan’s questionable law

THERE is something very odd if a government takes the Ordinance route. And suspicions deepen if an image-conscious government keeps the Ordinance under wraps for nearly one and a half months till it is ferreted out by the media. The Rajasthan Government’s September 7 Ordinance seeks to accomplish several questionable objectives. First of all, it gives immunity to serving government officials as well as serving and retired judges from being investigated for on-duty action without its prior sanction. This may be an attempt on the lines of a Maharashtra Government Ordinance barring magistrates from ordering FIRs against public servants without the government’s prior sanction. It has already been challenged in court for providing an extraordinary feeling of an undeserving impunity to public servants. 

But the Vasundhra Raje government has dialled the Maharashtra Ordinance up to new levels. The Rajasthan version bars the media from publicising any particulars against public servants till the government approves their prosecution. Not content with these restrictions, it also calls for the insertion of a new provision that provides for imprisonment up to two years if the media violates this provision. This new-found zeal to protect its public servants is very much at odds with the BJP’s professed frenzy to book every crook in town; it also sounds the death knell of investigative reporting. 

A challenge to the Ordinance is bound to happen. But it rankles when experienced administrators like Ms Raje consciously overlook the infringement of the public’s right to be informed about the conduct of public servants. This is especially so when a rules-based framework exists under Section 197 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC). Besides, the judiciary gets additional protection under the Judges Protection Act from actions during discharge of their duties. The Rajasthan Government’s tweaking of laws not only partially rolls back the hard-won fight for the right to information about public servants, but also strikes at the foundation of journalistic freedom to report and disclose the identity of people against whom sanction is sought. That a BJP government should attempt such a regressive law suggests the party is becoming a victim of its political arrogance. There will be a democratic backlash.