SUPREME COURT CLOSES 18-YEAR SALWA JUDUM CASE, REJECTS CONTEMPT PLEA:

After 18 long years, the Supreme Court has finally disposed of the petitions filed by sociologist Nandini Sundar and others, which raised serious concerns about human rights violations committed by security forces and Salwa Judum activists in Chhattisgarh. To provide a brief background, the case originated from the Chhattisgarh government's practice of recruiting local tribal youth as Special Police Officers (SPOs) and training them to serve as a counterinsurgency measure against the Maoist/Naxalite movement in the state.

In 2011, recognizing the scale and gravity of the human rights abuses, the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling directing the State of Chhattisgarh to disband and disarm all SPOs, including those functioning under designations such as 'Koya Commandos', Salwa Judum, or any other similar force deployed to address the insurgency issue. Despite this ruling, two writ petitions and one contempt petition connected to the matter continued to remain pending before the Court. Recently, the Court brought closure to all three cases. The writ petitions were disposed of on the basis that the reliefs sought in them had already been addressed and crystallized in the 2011 judgment. As for the contempt petition, the Court held that the reliefs sought through it were, in effect, in the nature of writs of mandamus, remedies that cannot be granted within the limited scope of contempt jurisdiction.

Regarding the specific claim in the contempt petition—that the enactment of the Chhattisgarh Auxiliary Armed Police Force Act, 2011 (which created an auxiliary security force to assist in combating the Maoist/Naxalite insurgency) constituted contempt of the Court’s 2011 decision, a bench comprising Justices BV Nagarathna and Satish Chandra Sharma ruled against the plea.

“We also observe that the passing of an enactment subsequent to the order of this Court by the legislature of the State of Chhattisgarh cannot, in our view, be said to be an act of contempt of the order passed by this Court...The promulgation simpliciter of an enactment is only an expression of the legislative function and cannot be said to be an act in contempt of a Court unless it is first established that the statute so enacted is bad in law constitutionally or otherwise."

The Court reaffirmed that a state legislation retains its legal validity unless and until it is declared ultra vires of the Constitution by a Constitutional Court. It observed that while courts do have the authority to interpret laws and examine their constitutional validity, "the interpretative power of a Constitutional Court does not contemplate a situation of declaring exercise of legislative functions and passing of an enactment as an instance of a contempt of a Court."

Additionally, the Court remarked, "We must remember that central to the legislative function is the power of the legislative organ to enact as well as amend laws. Any law made by the Parliament or a State legislature cannot be held to be an act of contempt of a Court, including this Court, for simply making the law." Emphasizing the principle of separation of powers, the Court underscored that any legislative enactment can be challenged solely on two grounds: legislative competence and constitutional validity.

"A legislature has, inter alia, the powers to pass a law, to remove the basis of a judgment or in the alternative, validate a law which has been struck down by a Constitutional Court by amending or varying it so as to give effect to the judgment of a Constitutional Court which has struck down a portion of an enactment or for that matter the entire enactment. This is the core of the doctrine of separation of powers and must always be acknowledged in a constitutional democracy such as ours."

Having regard to the circumstances in Chhattisgarh, the Court also observed that specific steps are required to be taken for peace and rehabilitation of the area. "it is duty of the State of Chhattisgarh as well as the Union of India, having regard to Article 315 of the Constitution, to take adequate steps for bringing about peace and rehabilitation to the residents of State of Chhattisgarh who have been affected by the violence from whatever quarter it may have arisen."