The Kerala High Court ordered the Popular Front of India (PFI) to make a provisional deposit of Rs 5.2 crores on Thursday in order to cover the costs estimated by the state government and the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) for the damage to property in the state as a result of the flash hartal the organisation was prohibited from calling for on September 23.
The high court had on January 7, 2019 made it clear that flash hartals, namely those hartals/strikes called without adhering to the procedure of giving seven days public notice, would be deemed illegal/unconstitutional entailing adverse consequences to the persons/party calling for the hartal.
Political parties that engage in flash hartals in direct defiance of the court’s prior direction will suffer serious repercussions, said the division bench comprising Justices AK Jayasankaran Nambiar and Mohammed Nias CP.
The bench said that a claim commissioner has already been chosen, and he will determine how much PFI paid to resolve the claims.
The Court further stated that the state will take recovery proceedings against the PFI if they failed to deposit the money with the Additional Chief Secretary of the Home Department.
The Court instructed the Magistrates and Sessions Court that whenever a bail application based on the PFI hartal issue comes up, the bail should be granted on the condition that they deposit the amount lost due to the property damaged. This was done because it was brought to the court’s attention that several criminal cases have been registered for the damages caused during the hartal.
The court further mandated that any proceedings brought before the various Magistrates/Sessions courts in the state in relation to offences committed during the flash hartal include Abdul Sathar, state general secretary of the PFI, as an extra defendant.
Taking note of the fact that the PFI had called for a hartal without providing the required 7-day notice, the Kerala High Court issued the ruling in suo motu contempt proceedings that it had started on September 23, the day the hartal was called.
Later, the KSRTC filed a petition with the high court asking for compensation from the PFI in the amount of Rs 5.06 crores for the harm done to its buses during the hartal, during which several protesters pelted stones at one another and engaged in other damaging behaviour.
As many as 487 cases were registered with 1,992 people arrested and 687 taken into preventive custody, the government informed the court.
“Whenever the word hartal is said, it has a different meaning among the citizens. People are living in perpetual fear. What does a common man have to do with this? Common man suffers, and for what? Not supporting an ideology of yours ?,” asked the Court.
This strong court directive came after the state, as directed by the Centre, came out with an order asking the Kerala Police to go forward in taking the appropriate steps which includes locking up of all the offices of the banned organisations besides freezing of bank accounts of such organisations.
With inputs from IANS.
