AP Sate Minorities Commission to request NCM to become party in Supreme Court appeal.
By Mohd. Ismail Khan, TwoCircles.net,
Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh State Minorities Commission has decided to approach National Commission for Minorities for bringing to its notice that their leading achievement got drown in administrative laxity, which now holds national upshot.
The state High Court judgment terming payment of compensation to the wrongful terror arrest victims as unlawful has come as surprise for many but for Minorities Commission it’s a shock. Moreover, High Court has even ordered state Government to recover the amount already been allotted to the victims.
File photo of Abid Rasool Khan in a meeting.
It was the active intervention, major findings and strong recommendations of State Minorities Commission and National Minorities Commission which compelled state Congress Government to grant compensation to the youths who were tortured in illegal detention and prosecuted in fabricated terror cases after Mecca Masjid and Twin bomb blasts in 2007.
State Commission chairman Abid Rasool Khan, speaking with TCN, said he is going to write letter to State Government to effectively challenge the verdict in the Supreme Court and will be meeting NCM chairman Wajahat Habibullah to solicit NCM for taking lead in the case and to become a party to the state appeal in the highest court of the land.
Mr. Khan said he will appeal to NCM to bare all the legal costs in this case to represent it accurately in the Supreme Court and the state commission itself will take part in the challenging process along with state Government.
Mr. Abid Rasool Khan said he was shocked by the judgment, “Honorable Court didn’t take into consideration that compensation was given to those youths not just for wrongful arrest but for torture they have undergone in illegal detention.”
He also felt that Court has not taken the other account into deliberation, “Those youths were the first affected once in the case, and court has given the judgment without giving them a chance to represent their stand or their side of the account.”
Earlier speaking with TCN state Minority Affairs Minister Mohammed Ahmedulah refused any laxity on part of his Government in representing the matter in the High Court, but he was clueless when asked about the nature of documentation placed by Advocate General in the High Court.
SMC chairman who himself is former state Congress general secretary believed that there seems possibility of lapse by the state side in presenting the facts properly in the court of law. “Minority Affairs Ministry should have taken more interest in this crucial case, if there was some lapse in representing the case, than SMC will look into it to ensure it doesn’t happen again.” But he cautiously adds that state govt. should not be singled out to blame.
“To be frank no one publicly knew this case has reached in such an advance stage, as SMC chairman and political leader it was also my responsibility to monitor the case. Now we will pursue the case in a proper manner and will ensure NCM or SCM becomes party in this case,” Mr. Khan said.
File photo of Minority affairs minister Ahmedullah allotting compensation check to terror acquitted Muslim youth.
Abid Rasool Khan is not just concerned about the effect of the court order on those 70 odd Muslim youths but its gravity of national ramifications, “I will bring to the notice of NCM that national ramifications of this High Court order if it goes unchallenged or ended on with the same fate in the Supreme Court will be disastrous. There are hundreds of other Muslim youth who were falsely implicated in terror cases and after life gets shattered they were acquitted. They also deserve to be compensated, but now this High Court could become a precedent for other courts to oppose it, unless we get it reversed from the Supreme Court.”
But the fight in the Supreme Court will not be restricted this time to compensation, as the recommendations of National and State Minorities Commission goes it demanded action against guilty police officers and compensation to be paid to those youths from the salaries of erring officers not from the tax payer’s account.
Mr. Khan said now the whole matter will come up in the Supreme Court, “We will place all our recommendations before the Supreme Court, the reasons and background behind those recommendations will also be explained. So in the argument the action against guilty police officers will also come up. Supreme Court has the jurisdiction to decide in any matter, so the persecution of these youths by the police will also have to be heard; sure now those police officers will have hard time to present their case in the court.”
On his part, Andhra Pradesh CM Kiran Kumar Reddy told a news channel that the decision to give compensation was an executive order that need not be subjected to judicial review.