PIL wants court to stop Hazare, IAC from fasting
The petition filed by Mangaleshwar Tripathi also seeks court's direction to Hazare and his supporters to ensure that they do not break any law.
Even as volunteers of the India Against Corruption (IAC) along with other NGOs take part in Anna Hazare’s three-day fast against a weak Lokpal Bill, the vacation bench of the Bombay high court will hear a public interest litigation that has sought to declare the movement as “illegal and unconstitutional”.
Filed in the Bombay high court by social worker Mangleshwar Tripathi alias Munna on Monday evening, the PIL asks the court to restrain Hazare and his followers from resorting to unconstitutional and pressure tactics like fasting and jail-bharo andolan.
Advocate Yusuf Iqbal, who filed the PIL on Munna’s behalf, said that Hazare and the IAC be “restrained from turning the anti-Lokpal stir’ into a political matter”. Alleging that Hazare has been propped up by certain people with vested interest, the PIL wants the court to restrain them from making any statement against any particular party.
Another contention made by the PIL is that by resorting to a fast, on the three days when the Bill will be debated in the Parliament, the respondents are attempting to exert undue influence and put pressure on the Central government and the Parliament to accede to their demands. Without waiting for Parliament’s decision, Hazare and his followers rejected the proposed Lokpal Bill and are going on nationwide protest, the PIL said.
Warning that allowing the Anna trend will tear the fabric of democracy, the PIL contends: “It’s highly wrong and incorrect if a group of a person (who have no electoral mandate) are allowed to ride roughshod over the government of a country and force upon the elected representatives and legislators to accept their version of the law.”