AAP's misuse of Punjab Police raises disturbing questions

File image of AAP chief and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal

Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga, General Secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), has a penchant for getting into the news for the wrong reasons. But now he is grabbing headlines for being wronged.

Last Friday, a platoon of the Punjab Police landed at his Delhi residence. They arrested him on a complaint filed by an AAP leader, Sunny Singh Ahluwalia, alleging that “Bagga had made provocative statements, spread rumours, and tried to create religious and communal disharmony”.

This was followed by high drama. In a rare instance of cops chasing cops, the Delhi Police pursued the Punjab Police armed with orders from a Delhi Court, where it had charged them of kidnapping Bagga. The Punjab Police team was intercepted at Kurukshetra with the help of the Haryana Police and Bagga was brought back to the safety of his home.

However, the story did not end there. A fresh FIR was lodged against Bagga by another AAP MLA of Punjab based on which a court in Mohali issued a non-bailable warrant against him. Bagga’s lawyer moved an urgent petition before the Chandigarh High Court. In a midnight hearing at his home, the judge granted him reprieve till May 10^th, when the case is slated to come up for hearing.

Meanwhile, several other police complaints are reported to have been filed against Tajinder Bagga in various places across Punjab. In another development, seen by many as a retaliation against Bagga’s arrest, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Saturday carried out searches at three locations in Punjab's Sangrur district linked to AAP MLA Jaswant Singh Gajjan Majra in a Rs 40-crore bank fraud case.

As the game of one-upmanship and war of words continued between the Aam Aadmi Party and BJP, Bagga’s case is problematic in many ways.

The subversion of the police force by the political establishment is an old malaise of the system and the need for police reforms has been discussed ad nauseam. But, this trend of state governments using the police to settle political scores across their boundaries is disturbing and raises serious questions about the federal structure of the country.

Bagga’s is not the first instance of state police overreach beyond its own territorial jurisdiction. Recently, one saw Assam Police descend in Gujarat to arrest Jignesh Mewani with orders of the lower judiciary. In another case, a Rajasthan Police team has been deputed to Noida, in the National Capital Region for arresting a Television journalist Aman Chopra accused of reporting fake news.

A video has surfaced in social media where Arvind Kejriwal is heard saying that once he has a police force under his control, it would be easy to teach lessons to his detractors by putting a few of them behind bars. The obvious reference was to the fact that the Delhi Police does not report to the Chief Minister but has a direct line of command from the Union Home Minister. Now that the Aam Aadmi Party is ruling Punjab it has a full-fledged police force under its charge. Can it be used as an extended arm of the Delhi Government to get even with its opponents?

The concern may not be exaggerated. Since AAP came to power, the Punjab Police has booked a few more politicians other than Bagga, namely, Alka Lamba of the Congress, Preeti Gandhi, Naveen Kumar Jindal and Kumar Vishwas. What is common between these names is that all of them have been accused of the same offence —namely, making derogatory remarks about Kejriwal. Without going as far as calling them acts of vendetta, can they be regarded as suppression of free speech?

The jurisprudence on libel is highly nebulous. Arvind Kejriwal himself has been embroiled in defamation suits more than once. The limits of free speech is always a matter of debate. To subvert that process, a new trend that seems to be emerging is slapping charges of sedition at the slightest provocation. In many instances, the trigger is some social media post, primarily on Twitter and Facebook. Those are slippery territories, where people have to tread with caution as the retribution can be disproportionate.

The Supreme Court of India is in the midst of hearing arguments about the validity of Sedition Law that is seen by many as a legacy of the British Raj. From the arguments of lawyers so far, the majority view seems to be that the law is not defective per se but it has to be applied with necessary safeguards and discretion

But, as the Bagga case shows, politics often prevails over principle. Therein lies the rub.