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The system of dispensing ‘justice’ through kangaroo courts continues in rural and urban Tamil Nadu despite court directives to end the practice.
A. Manoharan and his wife, Vanitha, who, along with their two daughters, have been ostracised from their hamlet, Panaiyur Periakuppam in Kancheepuram district, by the “meenavar†panchayat, a kangaroo court, over a land dispute. The Madras High Court ordered police protection to the family, but they continue to live in fear.
The Madras High Court has again come down heavily on the katta panchayats (kangaroo courts) operating in different parts of Tamil Nadu. Through an order on December 19, 2008, it directed the authorities concerned to take effective steps to curb the activities of these extrajudicial bodies.
Earlier, the court had passed judgments in two other cases, on April 8, 2004, and July 5, 2005, against katta panchayats, which throw a challenge to law-enforcing agencies and the administration. They work in different names and forms.
The High Court, in its latest order, flayed the meenavar (fishermen’s) panchayat of Panaiyur Periakuppam hamlet in Kancheepuram district for issuing a fiat excommunicating a family following a land dispute.
As per the court’s direction to provide protection to the “excommunicated†family, the police entered the hamlet inhabited by 255 fishermen’s families on December 20, 2008. More than three months after the court’s verdict, an eerie silence prevails in the hamlet located 100 km from Chennai.
A. Manoharan, head of the ostracised family, told Frontline on March 13 that he lived in perpetual fear though the kattapanchayatdars were lying low owing to the police presence in the hamlet. “We don’t know how long we can withstand this humiliation. Even on the day after the High Court passed its order, a gang instigated by the panchayat stormed my residence, forcing us to put up a grill door to protect ourselves. If this can happen to a comparatively well-off person like me, imagine the plight of poor fishermen. I am afraid I shall be forced to leave this place with my wife and two daughters if the police protection is withdrawn,†he said.
Recounting the unpleasant developments, Manoharan, a former member of the meenavar panchayat, said trouble started in January last year with the panchayat laying claim to a portion of the 3.2 acres of land owned by his father-in-law N. Krishnan in the village, on the pretext of providing access to the burial ground. According to him, the fishermen’s panchayat also laid down several conditions on the family for its continued stay there.
According to him, Krishnan was not only prevented from entering the village but also asked to hand over possession of a portion of the disputed land to the panchayat. They had sought an apology from Manoharan’s wife, Vanitha, for lodging a complaint with the police alleging that functionaries of the panchayat were threatening her family with excommunication if a solution was not found to the land issue. She was also barred from meeting her father.
As Manoharan and his wife did not budge, the panchayat made a public announcement to residents of the hamlet that no one should communicate with or help the family, including the children. Those who violated the decision would be excommunicated and a fine of Rs.10,000 would be imposed on them, it said. Close on the heels of the announcement, miscreants went on the rampage at the coconut grove owned by Manoharan, destroying coconuts.
But the functionaries of the meenavar panchayat do not seem to have realised that they had acted against the laws of the land. They argued that this was not the first time that the panchayat had taken such strong action. Years ago, it gave a verdict in a family dispute, making an elderly person crawl around the local temple several times, recalled an office-bearer of the panchayat. The 11-member panchayat took decisions only to safeguard the interests of the residents, he said. He claimed that it had played a proactive role in providing them relief in times of crisis.
Dubbing the meenavar panchayat a katta panchayat, the court referred to the report of the Kancheepuram district Superintendent of Police, which admitted the existence of such extrajudicial bodies in all the fishing hamlets in the State and submitted that “they are enquiring into minor delinquencies and imposing fines†.
While passing the order, Justice N. Paul Vasanthakumar also observed that the report of the police officer “clearly establishes the fact that goondaism by katta panchayats continues in the State of Tamil Nadu†.
Pervasive influence
Interaction with leaders of political parties, activists of human rights organisations, lawyers and police officials reveal that the illegal system has its pervasive influence in almost all sectors and in rural and urban areas.
With economic and social relations in the rural areas undergoing a transformation, even the traditional oor (community) panchayats in several villages have started losing their importance. In some villages, where remnants of these still exist, their composition has changed drastically and they have been reduced to kangaroo courts controlled by self-styled village heads assisted by their henchmen. In some places they control the village’s resources too. They continue to award punishments while settling family, civil and monetary disputes.
Only a couple of years ago, functionaries of the Tamil Nadu Village Panchayat Presidents’ Federation pointed out that the katta panchayat system existed in 30 per cent of the 12,618 villages in the State.
Incidentally, these extrajudicial agencies have features that are strikingly similar to the khap panchayats of Haryana insofar as issuing fatwas and awarding punishments such as fines and social boycotts. The attempt in both cases is to silence the new social forces that have risen from among the deprived sections of society, women and Dalits and are challenging status quoist forces. Predictably, women are kept away from these kangaroo courts.
Justice M. Karpagavinayagam, in his landmark judgment in Rajendran vs The State in April 2004, observed that many actions taken by the katta panchayat “result in deprivation of social status, access to basic facilities like food, water and shelter, denial of cultural facilities like common worship, access to religious events, etc., and denial of economic opportunities like employment, finances, etc. As such, these would constitute violation of human rights guaranteed.â€
The punishment awarded on August 3, 2003, by the katta panchayat to the two victims – both women – in this case exposed the crude nature of these medieval institutions. An employee of the Telecom Department, along with her mother, was summoned by six panchayatdars of Valayapatti village in Tiruchi district and ordered to pay a fine of Rs.50,000 for not complying with their direction to her to join her husband. The panchayatdars also made the victims prostrate before them repeatedly from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. to reduce the quantum of fine.
S.R. Jangid, Commissioner of Police, Suburban Chennai, is of the view that one reason for the mushrooming of katta panchayats is the escalating land prices in urban areas. The illegal arbitration was restricted by and large to land transactions initially. Gradually it extended to the settlement of any dispute, he said.
The shrinking area under cultivation owing to the non-profitability of agriculture against the backdrop of globalisation, the lack of alternative jobs and the escalating problem of unemployment in rural areas have contributed in a big way to the flourishing of katta panchayats and other anti-social activities, says K. Balakrishnan, general secretary of the Tamil Nadu Vivasayigal Sangam.
R. Nallakannu, veteran leader of the Communist Party of India and chairman of the central control commission of the party, is of the view that the erstwhile oor panchayats in villages have given way to katta panchayats run by persons who have close links with “dadas†and certain political bigwigs operating in cities and towns. Police intervention is totally absent whenever the kattapanchayatdars indulge in out-of-court arbitration, he says, and adds that the illegal system has percolated from the district and taluk headquarters to the villages now.
G. Ramakrishnan, Central Committee member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), says the katta panchayats in rural areas are run by a combination of the rural rich, contractors and anti-social elements. The katta panchayat is used against people’s movements even as the law-enforcing authority turns a blind eye to it. In many cases, officials have been hand in glove with those running katta panchayats.
As in any other conflict, women and the weaker sections, including Dalits, bear the brunt of the onslaught of the katta panchayat. A two-pronged approach, combining political intervention and administrative measures, has to be adopted to counter the menace, he says.
Underworld link
In urban areas, the katta panchayat has assumed an entirely different role fostered by the politician-anti-social nexus, particularly in the wake of the real estate boom in recent years. In Chennai and other cities and major towns, they are run by underworld dons, who adopt strategies such as the forging of documents to resort to illegal arbitration and the intimidation and abduction of victims to deal with cases relating to property disputes, business rivalries and money transactions.
In Madurai and its suburbs, the menace has reached a level where property deals worth more than Rs.2 crore cannot be registered unless they are cleared by certain politically influential persons, claims S. Selva Gomathi, secretary of the human rights wing of the Society for Community Organisation Trust.
In certain areas katta panchayats are also run by political functionaries, mostly belonging to the ruling party because it is they who are powerful, have the protection of political godfathers, and have the tacit assistance of officials of the law-enforcing agencies, says Anita Tiphagne, a functionary of People’s Watch. According to her, “the katta panchayat does not follow any principle of the rule of law. It is, therefore, a system of justice delivery by the powerful using their power and very often silencing the powerless.â€
The most dangerous aspect of the katta panchayat relates to caste discrimination, more particularly in villages in Madurai, Ramanthapuram, Pudukottai and Sivaganga districts, according to T. Lajapathiroy, joint secretary of the Madurai unit of the Lawyers for Human Rights. Persons belonging to traditionally powerful families of the dominant communities, who run the katta panchayat, issue fatwas prohibiting Dalits from purchasing land in some areas while in some other areas tenants are forced to leave the land they cultivate.
Citing an example in a village at Melur taluk in Madurai district, he says Dalits have been prevented from participating in the auction of temple land. “If any person violates the ‘fatwa’, his/her entire family will be excommunicated.â€
He claims two Dalits of Thennagarampatti village were murdered in July 1992 for violating the panchayat’s order, and the Karur Sessions Court awarded double life imprisonment against 26 persons in the case in August 2008. According to a study done by Thamizmurasu, from 1983 to 2007 a total of 27 Dalits were murdered in Madurai district alone for not honouring katta panchayat’s decisions, he says.
The cumbersome process of disposal of cases by courts is said to be a major factor contributing to the mushrooming of katta panchayats, which yield instant results. According to official sources, as many as 3.9 lakh civil cases and 36,000 criminal cases were pending in the Madras High Court. In the subordinate courts, the numbers as on December 31, 2007, were nearly five lakh civil cases and 4.30 lakh criminal cases.
Opinions differ on the question of adequacy of the laws to curb the katta panchayat menace. Justice Karpagavinayagam, in his judgment on April 8, 2004, said: “Having regard to the alarming situation, which is not controlled till now, it is proper for this court to suggest to the government that it would be advisable to issue an ordinance exclusively for eradicating the evil of katta panchayats.â€
Senior advocate R.Vaigai, who was amicus curiae in the case, expressed the view that apart from the offences listed in the Indian Penal Code, “the other offences under the S.C./S.T. (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, and the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment on Women Act, 1998, also would get attracted, and if the government takes a view that no new ordinance is necessary, the officials can be directed to take action under the IPC as well as under the other Acts mentioned above†.
As the persons associated with the katta panchayat more often than not were officials of the State/local administration/police, they must be made aware of the provisions under which action can be taken against katta panchayats and that even a private party could not violate Articles 21, 23 and 25 of the Constitution and all were bound by Article 51-A, she had submitted then.
Jangid feels that amendments are needed to the property registration and rent control laws to prevent the registration of forged documents. Director General of Police K.P. Jain recently sent a circular to police officers listing 14 guidelines to be followed while dealing with disputes relating to land and money matters. The circular made it clear that katta panchayats should be dealt with severely.
As per the court’s direction, the then Chief Secretary to the Tamil Nadu government had sent separate letters to all departments in November 2003 stating that government servants should not be allowed to involve themselves in katta panchayats. In pursuance of that, the then Director General of Police sent letters to subordinate officers to take effective steps against katta panchayats by registering first information reports (FIRs).
A Division Bench of the High Court, comprising Markandey Katju and F.M. Ibrahim Kalifulla, giving its verdict in K. Gopal vs The State of Tamil Nadu on July 5, 2005, said: “In our opinion, katta panchayats could not flourish in the first place without the collusion of the police and other authorities, or by their turning a blind eye to these unlawful activities. If such unlawful, extraconstitutional activities are not put down with an iron hand, there will gradually be a collapse of law and order and democracy in the State. Hence we direct all the State authorities to take strong action in accordance with the law to put down these unlawful, hooligan activities which have mushroomed in several areas of the State of Tamil Nadu and institute criminal prosecution against those who are involved.â€
Copyright © 2009, Frontline.
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