The apex court said it would like to examine the secret inputs to determine whether the state was justified in deploying central paramilitary forces like Rapid Action Force and CRPF in the university campus.
"The Rapid Action Force entering the campus in the garb of dealing with "anti-social elements, Maoists is entirely a serious matter. We can understand deployment of police force. But deployment of Rapid Action Force and paramilitary forces....we want to to know what is the secret input," a bench of Justices G S Singhvi and Asok Kumar Ganguly said while directing the state to furnish the same by Wednesday.
The apex court passed the direction after senior counsel Harish Salve justified deployment of central forces on the ground that there were intelligence inputs to suggest that Maoists have infilitrated the university campus to instigate large scale violence on the separate state row.
The bench also extended till February 25 the stay imposed on the AP High Court order directing withdrawal of paramilitary forces from the campus."Where is the input of the infiltration inside the campus? What is the proof available? We would like to have it," the bench repeatedly told Salve who agreed to furnish the same.
"At the moment, we are concerned with the infilitration of anti-social elements or whatever name you call. What is the evidence to have to say that the infiltration is by Maoists?" the bench told the state government. Responding to the submission by counsel, Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the students, that about 200 people have so far committed suicide, the apex court said "unfortunately suicides are being committed by ordinary people."
But the bench was also in no mood to accept the plea of the counsel for the students that excessive force like deployment of central forces should be avoided as they (students) were all children. "Don't call them children. They are all fathers of children," the bench snapped at the counsel. To complaints from the state that certain elements were using inflammatory and abusive language to provoke the students, the bench remarked "You can't change the culture of human beings!"
Salve submitted courts "do not have the power to dictate" the government how the police and law and order machinery should be deployed to quell an untoward incident.
