HC poser to Dispur: What have you done to curb bandhs?

By Our Staff Reporter

Guwahati, April 7: The Gauhati High Court has asked the Assam government to submit an affidavit on the steps taken to curb bandh culture in the State.

Hearing a PIL, a division bench of Chief Justice (acting) K Shreedhar Rao and Justice PK Saikia asked the State government to submit the affidavit to the court on or before Friday, senior advocate Bhaskar Dev Konwar said.

Several PILs have been filed in the court against the prevailing bandh culture which has infringed on the fundamental rights of citizens.

Taking up two such PILs in January, 2010, the Guwahati High Court had declared as illegal all bandhs in Assam and Meghalaya, saying it is violation of the fundamental rights of citizens.

A division bench of Chief Justices J Chelameswar and A C Upadhyay had passed the judgment on two PILs filed in Guwahati and in Shillong.

The bench had directed the Assam Government to take steps for preventing infringement of fundamental rights of citizens on account of bandhs.

Assam has witnessed a never-ending succession of bandhs for the last two decades. Almost every other day, some or the other part of the State has been under the purview of a bandh.

In 2012, the High Court had asked the state government to set up a consistent policy to deal with the prevailing bandh culture in the State.

The High Court order came on a PIL filed by a businessman. The petitioner had pleaded for the State government to set up a compensation fund for people who had suffered loss and injury to person or property due to bandhs.

Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi had often pledged to enforce the guidelines of the Supreme Court on bandhs and to take effective steps to compensate for the damages incurred by bandhs, but in reality nothing of such sort has happened.