Prakash Karat

THALASSERY: Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat on Tuesday said the judiciary was getting attuned to the values of liberalisation and privatisation, which are against the spirit of the Constitution.

Ninth Schedule

Referring to a Supreme Court ruling that legislation included in the Ninth Schedule was subject to judicial review, Mr. Karat said such rulings brought the will of the people into conflict with the values of courts.

The Ninth Schedule had been created for the protection of progressive enactments such as land reform legislation, he said inaugurating the K.V. Sudheesh commemoration function here.

The laws passed by legislatures in tune with the spirit of the Constitution should not be struck down, he said.

Asserting that the State had a responsibility towards providing education to all, the CPI (M) general secretary said the Kerala Professional Colleges Act introduced by the Left Democratic Front (LDF) in the State as soon as it took office was to ensure social control over private higher education institutions. Unfortunately, the Act had been struck down by the Kerala High Court.

On the Kerala High Court order enforcing a ban on campus politics, Mr. Karat said it went against the values of the freedom struggle on which the country had built its institutions. "There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents students from forming their associations."

The CPI (M) was for implementation of the recommendations of the J.M. Lyngdoh committee appointed by the Supreme Court to look into the issue of the students' right to organisation, he said. The committee had upheld this right.

The idea that education was for those who could afford to pay was a shame, Mr. Karat said. "This is against the Constitutional spirit of egalitarianism."

He said the party would oppose the idea that private entrepreneurs and foreign universities could set up higher education institutions in the country.

"We have told the United Progressive Alliance Government that we cannot support any legislation that brings foreign universities and private universities to the country," he said. Education could not be treated as a commodity to be traded in the market.

Mr. Karat urged the Congress-led UPA Government to increase resources by taxing the rich. The Government should impose capital gains tax on those who were making profits in stock exchanges.

He said the UPA Government was yet to fulfil the promise made in the National Common Minimum Programme, which was the basis of the Left support to it, that allocation for the education sector would be raised to six per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The Government should allocate more funds for education, agriculture and health sectors, he said. There should be more allocation for rural employment generation schemes.

Mr. Karat said the party had worked with all Left and democratic forces in the country to ensure that the communal forces were defeated and isolated. Those who believed that India should become a Hindu nation or that the country should be divided on religious lines should be defeated whichever religion they belonged to, he said.

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