SC notice to Centre on state rallies

NEW DELHI: Frowning upon the practice of organising political rallies with the help of state machinery, the Supreme Court on Friday issued notices to the Centre and UP on a plea seeking ban on such rallies.

A bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, Justice R V Raveendran and Justice J M Panchal said, “state machinery should not be used for state-sponsored rallies”.

The court was hearing a PIL filed by a journalist G D Goyal seeking direction to restrain deployment of state police for organising rallies and processions for achieving private ends.

The Bench while issuing notices to the Centre and UP gave liberty to the petitioner to make other state governments as parties in the matter.

The petitioner cited some rallies including that organised by RJD chief Lalu Prasad and Mayawati at Patna and Chandigarh alleging misuse of state machinery to make those successful.

The petitioner, seeking guidelines in the matter, drew the attention of the court towards some of such rallies. It said, for organising Chetavani rally on October 28 at Patna against the Bihar government, the railway minister had earmarked 25 to 35 trains to carry people from various parts of the country which resulted in diverting 57 other trains, causing hardship to passengers. Because of the rally, some ticket centres in the capital did not issue tickets to passengers, he said.

It further said that Mayawati also held a rally on the same day in Chandigarh and went there with a caravan of 50 cars which caused traffic jams and inconvenience to the people living in the Union Territory. Again crores of rupees were spent to organise a rally few months ago in Lucknow, allegedly at Mayawati’s instance, on the birth anniversary of the late Kanshi Ram.