Ref: – ECI being allowed to derelict in BJP CD case
Dear Sir
What communal politics did to Muslims of India during last two decades can not be fully comprehended merely by the stories of demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992 (despite Supreme Court’s observe over there) and by the horrifying details of the massacre of thousands of innocent Muslims since late eighties including in 2002 Gujarat pogrom.
But what is amazing is that the so called secular political parties and the Muslim leadership (from politico-socio-religio-cultural fields) are doing nothing when precisely it is the right time to bury the demon of communalism for ever in India.
To be fair to BJP, it has consistently said from the very beginning (even on May, 9 on T.V.) that why its president Rajnath Singh and other office bearers have not been arrested if they are really guilty of cognizable non-bailable offences of spreading communal hatred etc against Muslim through CD during election campaign of Uttar Pradesh [as is alleged in FIR lodged on the instance of constitutional authority, The Election Commission of India (ECI), in police station of Lucknow on April 5, 2007] ?
BJP further says that Rajnath Singh and other accused even went to police station to court arrest but police refused to arrest them that means whatever BJP has done in this CD episode, is not an offence in India.
Any person who has any honest knowledge of law knows that as soon as FIR is lodged u/s 154 Cr.P.C. in such cases then accused are mandated to be arrested and produced within 24 working hours before Magistrate (if there is no anticipatory bail). Even registering the F.I.R is mandatory (as ‘shall’ is used and not ‘may’ in the code). Mostly non-performing police officers say and gullible people (victims) erroneously believe that police has some sort of discretion in relation to filing of FIR / arrest of accused, pending the preliminary enquiry by police.
But law does not ordain so. If information is false then police is legally expected to initiate criminal proceeding against the informant who leveled false charges against the accused. That means in this case law expects police to immediately move either against accused or against mischievous informant (u/s 177, 182, 211 I.P.C.)
One can understand that police did not arrest Rajnath Singh and other office bearers of BJP when they went to court arrest as they brought huge crowd with them to derive political capital out of this. Hence due to apprehensions about law & order problem police might have avoided arrest. But no arrests of accused so far is certainly the evidence that police is not discharging its legal duty in order to not only protect accused but also to harm Muslims.
Hence the ECI on whose instructions / instance this FIR is lodged is legally required to:-
(1)- Not only file a complaint u/s 157 Cr.P.C. read with 166 I.P.C. etc. in the Court of Magistrate in whose territorial jurisdiction comes this police station in order to legally constrain police to move as per law and to immediately arrest Rajnath Singh and other office bearers of BJP.
(2)- But also to file a petition in High Court of U.P. to get directions to lower court to dispose the matter within a time bound period of (say) three months so that BJP may not use this CD and other such poisonous material in coming assembly elections in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Delhi where it has strong presence and may be in coming Parliamentary Elections (given more than a decade before cases are normally decided in the courts of India).
Secular parties and the Muslim leadership ought to have moved ECI by this time to get these court proceedings initiated through ECI. And in case ECI does not discharge its constitutional function and does not move lower Court of Lucknow & High Court of U.P. as mentioned above then they themselves could have initiated these proceedings.
But the appalling carelessness of these so called secular parties and the Muslim leadership in moving ECI / Courts certainly raises genuine suspicion that they are enemies of secularism in India. As they allowed BJP to take huge communal political benefit out of these poisonous CD etc. during campaigning in just concluded elections of U.P. (otherwise BJP would have been wiped out in these elections).
Yours truly,
Hem Raj Jain
New Delhi