PUCL says withdraw Ordinance, set to move Rajasthan high court

The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) on Saturday said that it would move the Rajasthan High Court against the contentious Ordinance that prohibits investigation without prior sanction against “a judge or a magistrate or a public servant”. It also prohibits the media from reporting on the accusation, until the prosecution gets a go-ahead from the sanctioning authority, which may take up to 180 days. Any violation may land the errant person in jail for up to two years.

“We will go to the high court tomorrow….The Ordinance should be repealed,” the rights organisation’s Rajasthan president Kavita Srivastava said.

Addressing the media, senior advocate and former Rajasthan PUCL president Prem Krishan Sharma, PUCL national vice-president Radha Kant Saxena and Srivastava called the Ordinance “a sinister attempt to abridge the fundamental right of citizens’ right to access criminal justice system in cases of complaints against abuse of law by public servants”.

Its “true intention”, they said, is to place an “embargo” on a judicial magistrate from ordering a police probe, except with sanction. They said the amendments are “superfluous and unnecessary”, as CrPC Section 197 already provides protection to public servants by making it mandatory for a court to take cognizance of an offence against public servants only after getting “prior sanction” of the government.