HRF Monthly

Preventive detention: Holding back the rule of law

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Supreme Court must give full effect to the 44th amendment to the Constitution

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It has been more than 43 years since the 44th constitutional amendment regulating preventive detention was passed by both Houses of the Parliament and signed by the President, but it is yet to be given effect.

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THE Supreme Court’s recent comments on the need to check the abuse of the State’s power of preventive detention are welcome. However, its periodic wringing of its hands is vexing. The remedy lies with it, but it has so far not grabbed the bull of executive caprice by its horns.

The use and abuse of long-term preventive detention in India continues to blight the human rights record of a country that claims to be an open constitutional democracy. Explicitly authorised by the Constitution and exempted from other constitutional protections such as the right to counsel, the right to be produced before a magistrate within 24 hours of being taken into custody, and the presumption of innocence, various pieces of legislation continue to be enacted and abused by the Union and state governments to preventively detain individuals for years on end without even charging them with a crime.

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HRF Monthly

An agenda for change in 2024

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The Hindutva juggernaut has stumbled quite a few times, and it can and will be stopped by the will of the Indian peoples exercised through the ballot. 2024 is D-Day. This is not a pious hope but an assertion of faith in the common Indian.

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INDIAN National Congress parliamentarian and United Progressive Alliance Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, in a thoughtful piece in The Hindu published on April 11, 2023 has sketched out some of the issues that confront the nation as the Hindutva juggernaut moves on, seemingly invincible.

All messianic political movements think they can go on forever. Myth and myth building, rather than an appreciation of history, is their forte. Hindutva is no different. They have stumbled quite a few times, and they can and will be stopped by the will of the Indian peoples exercised through the ballot. 2024 is D-Day. This is not a pious hope but an assertion of faith in the common Indian. A rider, of course, if we get out of our comfort zones and hit the dusty lanes of rural India.

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HRF Monthly

Justice for victims of army atrocities in Kashmir: Long road to accountability

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Since the Armed Forces Special Powers Act came into force in Jammu and Kashmir in 1990, the Indian government has not granted permission to prosecute any security force personnel in civilian courts.

ONE would have liked to join the hoi polloi in welcoming the decision of the General Court Martial to recommend imprisonment for life to Captain Bhoopendra Singh, alias Major Bashir Khan for staging the encounter killings of three men in Shopian, Kashmir in 2020. The sentence will be final if and when it is confirmed by the Northern Army Commander. However, the brooding presence of the past cautions one’s reaction.

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HRF Monthly

UNHCR’s gratuitous advice on Sri Lankan refugees

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The concept of voluntary repatriation is the most preferred one by host nations, but it is also made sure that the consent for repatriation is not taken involuntarily. For Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, however, the most durable solution would be local integration.

THE United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in India is coy at its best and devious at its worst.

In a piece in The Hindu on February 16, Oscar Mundia, the Head of Mission, UNHCR in India hides more than he reveals as to its actual position relating to the long-term resettlement of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in India. Apart from wrong usage (or perhaps a Freudian slip) of the English language in describing young Sri Lanka Tamil refugees born and brought up in India as “cohorts”, he seems to infer that the refugees themselves seem to be undecided and, contrary to international refugee law, that the refugees could be sent back to Sri Lanka against their expressed wishes. He also makes a faux pas by referring to the Hill Country repatriates, who are not part of the UNHCR’s remit.

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HRF Monthly

Thirteenth amendment to Sri Lankan Constitution — No lessons learnt in 75 years

/ / HRF Monthly

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The political implication of not implementing a proper federalist policy is the Tamils in Sri Lanka losing their voice and rights, thereby being subjected to further marginalisation. Every self-respecting Tamil in India and across the world should ask for nothing less than a federal Sri Lanka.

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ADDRESSING the Sri Lankan nation on its 75th Independence Day, its President Ranil Wickremesinghe on February 4 said he was determined to see maximum devolution of power to the provinces, but would not stand for the division of the country. He said that a cabinet sub-committee had been appointed to look into the unique issues faced by the people living in the north and the east of the country.

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HRF Monthly

Allahabad High Court order in Pilibhit extra-judicial killings case merits a substantive appeal

/ / HRF Monthly

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As early as 1993, the Supreme Court had castigated the Uttar Pradesh police. When the CBI authorities approached the local police as well as officers in the Home Department of the State Government, they did not receive the desired cooperation and case papers were not handed over to them.

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What was Allahabad High Court’s recent verdict on the Pilibhit encounter case of 1991?

ON December 15, 2022, the Allahabad High Court reduced the sentence of 47 policemen for killing ten Sikh men to seven years of rigorous imprisonment. The innocent Sikhs were killed in three incidents of extrajudicial executions (EJEs) in a single night in Uttar Pradesh’s Pilibhit district in 1991.

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