PIL in HC over Bihar govt's missive to schools on taking part

A missive by the Nitish Kumar government to schools across Bihar for ensuring participation of teachers and students in the proposed human chain next week has been challenged before the Patna High Court in two PILs claiming that it violates Article 21 of the Constitution and previous court orders.

The human chain is aimed at showcasing the government's initiatives in the direction of eradicating social evils like consumption of liquor, dowry and child marriage besides its thrust on environment conservation.

The public interest litigations (PILs) have been filed by Left students' body AISF through its state president Ranjeet Pandit, and one Kaushal Kumar Singh who heads an association of non-commissioned school teachers.

Pandit's counsel Dinu Kumar said a prayer has been made in the petition to quash the January 3 office order that says "direction has been issued for participation of students above Class V and teachers in government and non-government schools" in the human chain scheduled on January 19.

The petition claimed that the office order was issued "in complete violation of Article 21" of the Constitution, which guarantees right to life and personal liberty to all citizens, and was tantamount to "exploitation of teachers and students" and infringement of their "dignity and privacy rights".

The petition has also submitted that the missive violated the court's orders of January 16 and August 6 of 2018 in which the state government had been directed "to not compel students and teachers for participating in human chains".

The petitioner also contended that the event would result in "misuse of public money without any budgetary provision".

The state cabinet has recently approved the release of Rs 19 crore for the "Manav Shrinkhla" seen as a show of strength by the chief minister ahead of the assembly polls due later this year.

Kumar is serving his third consecutive term as chief minister since 2015. He had first embarked on the idea of a human chain in January, 2017, less than a year after he imposed a complete ban on sale and consumption of alcohol.

The human chain was said to have been more than 11,000 kilometres long and participated by 20 million people, including those of the parties opposed to Kumar, which expressed admiration for the bold move.

A year later, another human chain was organised in support of the government's campaign against child marriage and dowry but it received a mixed response with opposition parties staying off, dubbing the move as a political stunt.