Bihar Vyavsayik Sangharsha Morcha and Another vs The State of Bihar and Others

The issues raised in the writ petition are otherwise wide, basically about the deteriorating law and order situation in Bihar. No one has come forward to take up the brief on behalf of the Government that after efforts were made all is hunky dory. As far as Bihar is concerned, regarding the law and order situation, there is no peace and tranquility in the State, from north to south and east to west. If peace is to return in the State, a dedicated effort has to be made. The subject, law and order, is the portfolio of the Home Department and the Police Department.

A disease which apparently has struck the police department is long term postings of personnel who have managed their postings like tethered to a peg. An officer has remained posted and circles around the peg so that he does not move very far. This leash has to be cut. Otherwise, it gives an impression that these are the result of the fear and favour.

Police is an uniformed cadre and in so far as postings are concerned there has to be a regimentation compatible with the uniform which the personnel wears. If it is just a matter that the police administration and the home department needs a the Advocate General. An Advocate General who does not come to Court is a strange phenomenon. His position has been borrowed in essence from the British example. A very distinguished British Attorney General wrote in a paper which he submitted, his position is that of a spokesman for the Government, In a paper entitled "The Attorney General : the Corgy of the Crown", in the Cambridge Law Journal 1968. by Sir Ellwyn Jones, Attorney General, later to become the Lord Chancellor. An advance party kept heating the heat in the proceedings of this case, and what was submitted on behalf of the State government were irrelevancies and counterproductive. This is a positive exercise. This case is about life and liberty. Planning is both.

This is no joke. One life lost is enough. How many have to be lost for somebody to wake up that all is not well in Bihar, that coercion and intimidation hamper peace and progress in this State? Only those who sit in the safety of their cocoons whether the Governor, the Chief Minister, the Chief Justice, the Judges, the ministers and those with their own security arrangements, seem to live under a theoretical safety. Let us step outside, into the unprotected world and then the violence can be seen. You do not need a 70 mm screen to see it, it is all around 360 degrees. Let the State counsel and the absentee Advocate General tell the Chief Minister of the fundamental, duties enshrined in the Constitution. In this very specific context the Constitution of India says that it shall be the duty of every citizen of India to safeguard public property and abjure violence (Article 51A) how much more so is the duty of the Government?

The Court is not the place to enter into polemics. The Constitution of India talks of peace. Again, for it is never a sin to refer to the Bible on which State polity must work, in the same Article which speaks of fundamental duties, the Court reminds the State Government of its duty to promote harmony, humanism and the spirit of enquiry and reform and, to repeat, to abjure violence and safe guard public property. This in short is the rule of law.

It is for this reason the Court thought it fit to send those who may administer the State to get back to their desks at the Secretariat and come up with a plan. A plan of their own, without the hand of the High Court. The High Court is not running the administration. The High Court observed this yesterday and says so today.

But a plan must be dedicated. It is not that it cannot be done. It can be executed without favour and for the public good. The High Court cannot help noticing a report in one of the Hindi newspapers, that when the State administration wants to plan, it can do so, better than any State, but this has mostly been seen in the constituency of the Chief Minister. Let the State counsel convey to the Government that the Constitution, in the fundamental duties spelled out, oblige the administrators and those who execute plans to do it for the common good, for this is the Government of the people and for the people. In this regard the Fundamental Duties requires "to strive toward excellence in all spheres of individual and collective activity so that the nation constantly rises to higher levels of endeavour and achievement." The State Government may substitute, if the impact of the Constitution is not clear, for the word "nation", the word "Bihar". This would be insular thinking, but as long as the spark of peace, development and planning gets kindled or rekindled, it would benefit the people of the State.

The death of an engineer may only be a spark which ignited concern all over the nation, and it may not spark the solution of all ills. Shooting an Archduke in the Balkans may have started the first world war, though it was not the reason for it. Even the President of India has shown concern over this incident, perhaps it may set off a chain reaction.

The plan framed in pursuance of yesterday''s directions has been placed on record. Let this plan be tested, put into effect and tried. The plan for every machine which has to be mass produced must receive a Bench Mark for quality and efficiency before being replicated, a plan can be no different. And why can''t this plan work for the construction of every road in Bihar? If eliminating obstruction to development work can be done in one instance, why may it not be done, in others?

Let the plan for security of the highway as given today be implemented forthwith from today. Progress in the implementation may be reported when this matter is next taken up in Court on Thursday, i.e., 18th December, 2003.

Put up on 18th December, 2003 at 11.30 A.M. in the supplementary list under the same heading.