New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday pulled up the Delhi police for not taking action against those who made inflammatory speec-hes and said that if it had acted as required by law and in time the violence could have been averted.
Justice K.M. Joseph, who was a part of the two-judge bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, said that if you had acted the way law required you to act and stopped people from making inflammatory remarks the spiral of violence could have been averted and lives saved.
“Lack of professionalism of the police is the main problem here. If you had not allowed people to get away after inflammatory remarks, all this would not have happened. If you act the way law requires to act, you will see the difference,” Justice Joseph obs-erved hitting out at Delhi police for its inaction.
The court was obviously pointing to police not taking cognisance of BJP leader Kapil Mishra making inflammatory remarks against those opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act.
“I will say”, Justice Joseph retorted when Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta said that the observation from the judge may “demoralise the police” during these tense times.
“One of my constables has died. My DCP is injured. He is on ventilator. Let us not demoralise the police by saying anything now. We do not know what the situation on the ground is,” Mr. Mehta kept imploring the court.
“This will happen if you allow people to get away. Unless you get the police to act, there will be no difference. Look at how police acts in the UK. Do they require somebody’s nod? If somebody makes an infl-ammatory remark, police swings into action immediately,” Justice Joseph said emphasising that the violence and the consequent loss of life was on account of police inaction.
The bench also referred to the guidelines issued by it in 2006 in Prakash Singh case relating to police reforms.
The court’s disapproval of Delhi police came in the course of the hearing of two petitions seeking dire-ction for the eviction of sit-in protestors from Shah-een Bagh where it was blocking public roads.
The Solicitor-General was once again on the receiving end when Justice Kaul described as “unfortunate” the things that have happened in past few days.
As the S-G told Justice Kaul not to use term “unfortunate”, Justice Kaul joining Justice Joseph said, “Who can deny that whatever has happened is not unfortunate? Yes, many unfortunate things have happened. It should not have happened.”
