Nandini Sundar v. State of Chhattisgarh : The Salwa Judum Case

 The case arose out of a civil writ petition filed in 2007 in the Supreme Court by Nandini Sundar, a Professor of sociology at the Delhi School of Economics and others  alleging that the State of Chhattisgarh was actively encouraging a group called Salwa Judum, a civil vigilante structure, to counter Maoist insurgency, and that had resulted in violation of human rights. The Chhattisgarh state government created Salwa Judum in June 2005, projecting it as a spontaneous people's movement to take care of the law and order situation in the naxalite prone Dantewada district. It comprised about 6,500 Special Police Officers (SPOs), or Koya commanders, appointed by the State government. The force was substantially financed by the Central government.

 The Salwa Judum case was one of those rare cases heard by the Supreme Court; it was heard for 26 days spread over five years. Eleven judges, belonging to different Benches comprising two or three judges, heard the matter at different times. When Justice B. Sudarshan Reddy and Justice Surinder Singh Nijjar delivered the judgment in the case on July 5, they did so after hearing the case for 16 days during 2010-11.

The Reddy-Nijjar Bench held that the formation of Salwa Judum on a temporary basis was an abdication of the state of its constitutional responsibility to provide appropriate security to citizens by having an appropriately trained professional police force, of sufficient numbers and with proper equipment on a permanent basis. The Bench also held that the Salwa Judum policy violated both Articles 14 (equality before law) and 21 (protection of life and personal liberty) of those employed as SPOs as well as of the citizens living in those areas. Therefore, the Bench ordered the State government to disarm the SPOs, desist from using them to counter Maoist activities, and protect their lives.The Bench also directed the State government to prevent the operation of Salwa Judum or any other such group that seeks to take the law into its own hands or violates the human rights of any person. The Bench held that the appointment of SPOs to perform any of the duties of regular police officers was unconstitutional.

 One of the major legal troubles was excessive delegation from the legislature to the executive. The SPOs were appointed under the Chhattisgarh Police Act, 2007. But the Chhattisgarh Police Act said little, leaving far too much in the hands of the executive. No details or limitations were provided on the number of SPOs who could be appointed, their qualifications, their training, or their duties. The blatant vagueness of the law stood, as the Court observed, in sharp contrast to the Indian Police Act, 1861, which also provides for SPOs. Despite being a colonial law, beset with its own problems, the Indian Police Act nonetheless contains certain safeguards. It requires, for instance, the appointment of SPOs to receive approval from a magistrate.

The Salwa Judum judgment puts back into focus the constitutional scheme with socialism and the directive principles of state policy at the centre. It is against this backdrop that the Supreme Court frames the issue of compliance to Articles 14 and 21, and Article 355 with specific reference to the large-scale occupation of schools and hostels by security forces ostensibly to combat maoist forces; the deployment of the “koya commandos” or the Salwa Judum and the arbitrary use of extreme violence by this militia armed by the state; the arbitrary terms of employment of this tribal workforce that violates constitutional safeguards; and the obstruction of citizen's peace missions by the state.