Make leaders of violent stirs pay for vandalism: SC
March 18, 2009: The Times of India
New Delhi: This will chastise leaders of trade unions, political parties and organizations who lead agitations that often turn violent, causing extensive damage to public and private property (read buses and cars). For, the Supreme Court on Tuesday said it would pass a direction asking them to compensate the property owner, be it the government or a private individual.
Convinced that the woefully inadequate law — Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, 1984 — has been unable to stop violent agitations like repeated damage to railway tracks and other public properties during Gujjar agitations, a bench comprising Justices Arijit Pasayat and A K Ganguly resolved that it is time for the apex court to step in with elaborate guidelines till the Centre came out with an appropriate amendment to give teeth to the present law.
It asked amicus curiae Rajeev Dhawan and solicitor general G E Vahanvati to give suggestions for the guidelines that needed to be put in place immediately to deter extensive damage to public and private property during protests that turn violent.
Times View
The SC deserves to be congratulated for its initiative. It is right that merely threatening leaders of violent agitations with imprisonment is unlikely to deter them. Making them pay up for public and private property damaged will be a bigger deterrent. The apex court could go a step further and ensure that compensation covers not just the replacement cost of the damaged property but also the cost of inconvenience caused to the owner of the property. Finally, for the idea to have any effect, governments must faithfully enforce the court’s guidelines. Perhaps, the SC could also specify that where governments fail to enforce the guidelines, they will have to pay compensation to private owners till they can recover it from the vandals.
Jailing vandals of little help to property owners: SC
New Delhi: The SC had set up a committee under retired SC judge K T Thomas and accepted its recommendations, which included holding leaders of violent agitation responsible for the damage, videography of all demonstrations and protest marches, making bail a little difficult for the mischief mongers among the demonstrators and fast-tracking of their trial.
The bench went a little beyond these recommendations by suggesting that damage to private properties should also be taken into account while assessing the compensation and fastening accountability on leaders of agitations.
It said that jailing the violent demonstrators did not solve any problem for the property owners who have lost it all. The owner has to move a civil court seeking damage. It suggested setting up of damage assessment boards at the district level under the supervision of high courts in the states for speedy compensation to the victims of violence.
To vent its anguish at the remorseless acts of violence during agitations, the bench said the report pointed out that real perpetrators or the brains behind such wanton destruction of property were sitting somewhere else and the hirelings are caught on camera.
