During a recent visit to Uttar Pradesh, staff of the Asian Human Rights Commission came across a case that reveals the shocking extent to which the courts in India are misused by the rich and powerful, particularly against the abject poor and downtrodden.
Writ application no. 49982/2000 has been pending before the Allahabad High Court for the past six years, apparently without any evidence to support it. Why? The writ was submitted by a Mr. Bharuk, in an attempt to get title to property in Vazidpur village, Pindra Tehsil of Varansi district over which he in fact has no rights of ownership. The people who are entitled to the land are Dalit families of the Chamar community, so-called “untouchables”, to whom it was allocated by the land assignment officer in 1970. But Bharuk is known to be an influential person with contacts among senior lawyers. On this basis, rather than the merits of the claim, the case was admitted and has since made misery for the residents and legitimate owners of the land. A counter-affidavit lodged by the 17th respondent to the writ, Mr. Daya Ram, has shown how Bharuk has no basis for his claim, which has been repeatedly rejected by various courts and authorities over the last three decades. One of the courts has even recorded the original owner of the property as being someone else completely.
What are the consequences of the writ for the residents of the contested land, and why is Bharuk so keen to fight for property over which he has no genuine claim? As long as the court fails to decide on the writ, the families residing on the land have been restrained by the court from repairing their houses, constructing new dwellings or doing any agriculture on the vacant part of the land adjacent to their houses. Attempts to do so nonetheless have reportedly been met with Bharuk storming in with the local police who threaten and obstruct any work going on. The families are facing acute hunger due to the constant interventions of Bharuk, the police and the failure of the court to resolve the case. Ironically, while the Supreme Court has constituted a commission to study and report on starvation in India, in Uttar Pradesh the Allahabad High Court is itself a cause of severe hunger and degradation.
Indian law in principle ensures equality, equity and justice to litigants; however, judges breach these principles when they approach litigation casually and without applying reason.
In the past, India was known for the effective use of writ jurisdiction in favour of the poor and needy, particularly in cases of public interest. However, the case in Varanasi speaks to a trend away from courts being places of possible relief for the ordinary person and towards their being places where constitutional authority is misused to further victimise such persons.
There is no possible excuse for a court functioning under a consolidated fund established by the Constitution of India to sit on a groundless case for six years–let alone admit it in the first place. Neither is there any excuse for a court to issue a blanket stay order without considering the drastic consequences on the lives of hundreds of people by prohibiting them from cultivating or repairing their houses. The Asian Human Rights Commission can only conclude that the petitioner has made use of a tactless judge to push a few dozen Dalit families into starvation, and grab their land when they are forced to vacate the property.
Thousands of similar cases are now in the deep freezers of India’s courts, forgotten by everyone except the people whom they were designed to persecute. Whereas the most common excuse that India’s judges offer for unbearable court delays is that the government gives insufficient money for them to operate, were they judicious enough to at least read through the applications brought before them before admitting or dismissing them, they could considerably reduce the number of such delays and go a long way towards restoring the faith of the country’s poor in its judicial system.
