CHANDIGARH: The Human Rights violations can be checked if those who are not suffering resolve to stand up and fight for the cause of those who are being harassed.
These views were expressed by Justice Rajendra Sachar, ex-Chief Justice, Delhi High Court and an eminent Human Rights activist while delivering a lecture at Punjab University here Dec, 4, Justice Sachar was speaking on the topic, “Contemporary Issues in Human Rights.”
He said that Human Rights were an issue that was never discussed with honesty and seriousness in the past. It is only now that the world has started taking the matter seriously.
He pointed out that the issue was always used cynically by both the camps as an instrument of cold war. Justice Sachar remarked that the state can under no circumstances condone, justify and explain the violation of Human Rights as it is the ultimate coercive power. Hitting hard at the now repealed TADA he said that the law was being used to such an extent under the pretest of prevailing militancy in Punjab and Kashmir that a peaceful state like Gujarat had more TADA detainees than Punjab. He asserted the law was repealed only when the media, students and common people showed their resentment against it for arresting people like Sanjay Dat.
Pointing to Delhi riots of 1984 and the more recent assassination of the former Punjab Chief Minister, Mr. Beant Singh he said that the cause of violence being repealed again and again was lack of accountability on the part of those running the state machinery.
Justice Sachar asserted that the country was being put to shame again and again by incidents like excesses during the emergency and demolition of Babri Masjid, in spite of having one of the best constitutions in the world. He suggested that December 6 should be celebrated as Repentance Day for all the wrongs that have been done in the country.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 8, 1995
