Now for corrective steps

THE LESS THAN two months old Jayalalithaa dispensation, which stands discredited and checkmated - politically, legally and Constitutionally - after the shocking revelations of the police atrocities associated with the arrest of the former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Mr. M. Karunanidhi, was evidently left with little option but to quickly retrace its steps, even if it meant a stinging loss of face. By dropping the criminal charges against the Union Ministers, Mr. Murasoli Maran and Mr. T. R. Baalu, a few hours before the Central Cabinet was due to consider various options for `intervention', the State Government appeared to be preempting any drastic action by a regime that has its own political scores to settle with Ms. Jayalalithaa. In a sense, the AIADMK supremo had played into the hands of her political rivals and rendered her Government vulnerable by the reckless manner in which her uniformed and bureaucratic minions went about the task of `fixing' those on her hit list. Another indication of her Government's backtracking from a confrontationist course was its setting in motion the process of releasing the 23,000-odd DMK leaders and members taken into preventive custody before going for the `kill' last weekend in the `flyover scam' case. For its part, the Centre settled for the softer option of issuing a ``warning'' to the Tamil Nadu Government, but not before its political executive had allowed a high-voltage campaign to be orchestrated by the coalition partners for a totally unwarranted attempt to apply the much-abused Article 356, with Mr. George Fernandes, after a fact-finding mission, reporting - true to style - a total breakdown of the Constitutional machinery in the State. Obviously, the Vajpayee regime found it politically more expedient to be seen as adhering to the calibrated intervention favoured by the Sarkaria Commission, given especially that Ms. Jayalalithaa had sent some positive signals, the latest being the order to release Mr. Karunanidhi from prison on Wednesday.

The decision of the Tamil Nadu Government to drop the charges against the two Union Ministers - that they obstructed the police from discharging their duty - is certainly welcome, although its claim that the move was dictated by the imperative of maintaining cordial Centre-State relations fails to carry conviction. But this and the order to release Mr. Karunanidhi on ``humanitarian grounds'' do not, and cannot, obliterate the whole range of blatantly unlawful acts the rampaging police personnel had committed while taking Mr. Karunanidhi into custody. On top of the plethora of police excesses which have been public knowledge since June 30, thanks to the video footage on the operation - testifying to the gross and brazen violation of human rights and Judiciary-ordained norms - have now come the strong strictures by the Principal Sessions Judge, Mr. S. Ashok Kumar, against the police, sharply bringing out the audaciousnesss with which his directives in the remand order have been defied. No less damaging are the `facts' the Judge had ferreted out from the investigation officer and the Commissioner of the Chennai Corporation reflecting the unseemly haste shown in formulating the complaint on the `flyover scam' and the filing of the FIR - all of which only go to strengthen the ``political/personal vendetta'' theory. What is intriguing, however, is why the court had not gone into these dubious aspects at the time of issuing the remand order. There is no way the Government can absolve itself of its Constitutional obligation of making a thorough enquiry into the happenings on June 29 and 30 and bringing to justice those who had taken the law into their hands in the name of discharging their `duty'. In this context, the Government's ``assurance'' to the police that ``due care will be taken to protect their interests'' sounds rather ominous. Should the so-called ``protection'' mean shielding the culprits, it will mean a further affront to the rule of law and the democratic spirit. The issues involved have become a matter of national concern, with the National Human Rights Commission and the Judiciary at various levels already in the picture.

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