DINESH TRIVEDI M P Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Democracy in modern India is on the threshold of completing fifty years of existence. Milestones such as this have traditionally been occasions to embark upon wide-ranging assessments to survey the achievements and failures, highpoints and pitfalls, as well as the future prospects of the institution concerned. In our times, it is widely acknowledged that democracy in India has not risen up to the high expectations which heralded its conception. Many reasons have been advanced to explain the causes for the malaise which seems to have stricken Indian democracy in particular, and Indian society in general. The matter which we are presently concerned with professes to identify one of the primary causes for the present state of affairs.

(2.) The genesis of the controversy relates to the constitution of a committee by the Union of India on 9/7/1993, by its Order No. S/7937/ss (ISP) /93. An examination of the brief order discloses that the Committee was to be chaired by the Home secretary and was to comprise the secretary (Revenue) , the Director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) , the Director of the central Bureau of Intelligence (CBI) , and the Joint secretary (PP) , Ministry of Home Affairs. Later, the Special secretary (Internal Security and Police) was also included as a member. The erstwhile Home secretary being Shri N. N. Vohra, the Committee came to be popularly described as the "vohra Committee". The order further reveals that the Committee was set up "to take urgent stock of all available information about the activities and links of all mafia organisations/elements, to enableb further action". Based on the findings of the Committee, the Union government would then determine whether there was a need "to establish a special organ/agency to regularly collect information and pursue cases against such mafia elements". To this end, the Committee was declared to be competent to "invite senior officers of various departments concerned (Customs, Revenue, Intelligence, etc. ) to gather the required information". The Committee was also required to submit its report within three months.

(3.) The Report of the Vohra Committee, authored by its Chairman and containing only his signature, was submitted on 5/10/1993. The Report is essentially a compilation of the responses of its different members and includes the reports of the secretary, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) ,the Director, CBI, the Director, IB, and the views of the secretary (Revenue). In the main report, these various reports have been analysed and it is noted that the growth and spread of crime syndicates in Indian society has been pervasive. It is further observed that these criminal elements have developed an extensive network of contacts with bureaucrats, government functionaries at lower levels, politicians, media personalities, strategically located persons in the non-governmental sector and members of the judiciary; some of these criminal syndicates have international links, sometimes with foreign intelligence agencies. The Report recommended that an efficient nodal cell be set up with powers to take stringent action against crime syndicates, while ensuring that it would be immune from being exploited or influenced. However, no follow-up action on the findings of the Vohra Committee Report seems to have been initiated over the two years which immediately followed its submission.