Ravidas temple case shows social contract between Dalit groups and judiciary is fraying

Members of Bhim Army during a rally to protest against the demolition of Ravidas Mandir in Tughlakabad | PTI photo

A massive protest by thousands of Dalits shook the Capital last week after the Delhi Development Authority demolished a 500-year-old Ravidas temple in the Tughlakabad forest area on the Supreme Court’s order.

The developments in the Ravidas temple case show, once again, that the social contract between Dalit groups and the judiciary is fraying – from a ruling that many believed ‘diluted’ the SC/ST Act to upholding the 13-point roster system in universities.

A status-quoist, non-diverse judiciary has been redlining many of the demands or campaigns of self-assertion by Dalit groups.

What’s it all about

The Delhi Development Authority (DDA), which is overseen by the central government, is the de facto custodian of land in Delhi.

The DDA wanted to vacate the land on which the Ravidas Gurughar (temple) was located, and got a favourable order, from the trial court to the Supreme Court.

The trial court pronounced its order on 31 July 2018 and the high court in November upheld the lower court’s order. The Guru Ravidas Jayanti Samaroh Samiti filed a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court, which was dismissed in April 2019.

The Supreme Court said “we are not inclined to interfere with the impugned order passed by the High Court”, and ordered the authorities to “vacate the area within two months”.

The Delhi High Court in its order had actually given some relief to the appellant by saying: “As far as samadhis are concerned, they are very small samadhis, and they can continue to exist in the green area, of course without any legal right… if the appellant/plaintiff agrees to make a representation even to shift these samadhis adjacent to the area to which the temple and the two rooms are now to be re-located, the respondent no. 2/defendant no. 2/DDA will consider such representation by giving some minor additional land/area…”

Since the Supreme Court had declined to interfere in the matter, it can be argued that the DDA could have complied with the broad contours of settlement outlined by the high court order, and a due process to relocate the structures could have been initiated.

It’s strange that in this matter, the Supreme Court issued four orders in the course of six months. In the last order dated 9 August 2019, the Supreme Court said: “Let the premises be vacated by tomorrow and structure be removed by the DDA with the help of the police. We also direct the Commissioner, Delhi Police to provide adequate police help to do the needful and let the structure be removed….”

Such urgency is unusual on the part of the Indian judiciary – more than 57,000 cases are pending in the Supreme Court while the total pendency has touched 3.3 crore cases.

On 10 August, the DDA demolished the Ravidas temple.

Is there a pattern?

The question we must ask is if the recent Ravidas judgment is part of a larger pattern or the protests over the Ravidas temple demolition are an isolated event.

Take these two examples.

In March last year, a two-judge bench had underlined rigid safeguards under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Dalit and Adivasi groups believed that the change in provisions ‘diluted’ the stringent Act, leading to violent protests across the country in which several people died. Finally, the government moved a legislation to restore the original Act.

In January this year, the Supreme Court upheld the Allahabad High Court’s ruling in favour of department-wise quota in universities. Following the court’s order, the ‘13-point roster system’ was implemented, replacing the 200-point roster.

Many argued that this new reservation system was against the constitutional spirit of affirmative action. After huge protests and a Bharat Bandh, the government brought an ordinance and later a bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha to revert to the original roster system.

Against justice & Constitution

Nitin Meshram, a lawyer practising in Supreme Court and an expert on constitutional matters, has listed several Supreme Court judgments that he believes go against the spirit of justice and the Constitution:

1. State of Madras vs Smt. Champakam Dorairajan (1951 AIR 226): The Supreme Court’s interpretation of the provisions of equality forced the provisional Constituent Assembly (1^st Parliament) to carry out the First Amendment in the Constitution to add Article 15 (4) to uphold reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes in the country. In its ruling, the Supreme Court upheld the Madras High Court judgment, which had struck down the Government Order (GO) passed in 1927 in the Madras Presidency. The GO had provided caste-based reservation in government jobs and colleges. The Supreme Court held that providing such reservations was in violation of Article 16 (2) of the Indian Constitution.
2. M.R. Balaji vs State of Mysore (1963 AIR 649): The Supreme Court held that the reservation for the Backward Classes should not exceed 50 per cent and struck down the provision of 68 per cent reservation extended by the Mysore State. The five-judge bench of the Supreme Court held that for reservation, backwardness must be both social and educational.
3. T. Devadasan vs Union of India (1964 AIR 179): The Supreme Court held the “carry forward rule” ultra vires to the Constitution and thereby deprived the reserved communities their due share in the services/administration. The carry-forward rule (vacancies which remained unfulfilled due to non-availability of reserved category candidates and can be carried forward to the next year) was implemented for SCs and STs. In this case, the reservation reached 64 per cent and was struck down. The court said that the ceiling of 50 per cent cannot be breached.
4. Indra Sawhney & Ors vs Union of India (AIR 1993 SC 477): The Supreme Court rewrote the Constitution by upholding the exclusion of creamy layer from the purview of reservation. It additionally introduced the economic ceiling as criteria under Article 16 (4) of the Constitution. Indra Sawhney forced many Constitutional amendments and left many far-reaching consequences in the matters of equality and reservation, one of them being permanently denying the OBCs their right to reservation in promotion.
5. Supreme Court A-O-R Assn. vs Union of India, 1993: A bench of nine judges examined two questions – the position of the Chief Justice of India with reference to primacy, and justiciability of fixation of judge strength. The Supreme Court held that the Chief Justice has a primacy in the appointment of judges under Articles 124 and 217 of the Constitution, thus begetting the collegium system, and resulting in lack of diversity in higher judiciary.

This is not an exhaustive list of such status-quoist judgments. Indian judiciary, in that sense, is in sync with the judicial systems of several other democratic countries. Judges are not supposed to make laws, but only interpret the laws laid down by the Constitution and the legislature.

The onus to bring progressive laws rests with the legislature because its members have to seek people’s mandate at regular intervals.

The author is a senior journalist. Views are personal.