May 1: The confidential cabinet note of June 1995, which supposedly explains why the Shiv Sena-BJP government decided to withdraw criminal cases against Bal Thackeray, has turned out to be a specious attempt at self-justification.

Signed by former home secretary P Subramaniam, its guidelines cite only those cases in which there was no destruction of public property or loss of life. And these do not fall under Section 153 (A) of the Indian Penal Code which deals with incitement of communal hatred, the charge Thackeray faces. Apart from the guidelines in the note being totally irrelevant to the cases against the Sena chief, they don't even mention his name or the nature of cases filed against him.

But the government, using this document, withdrew all the cases filed between January 1985 and June 1995, including those not covered by it. Moreover, Thackeray's cases, filed in 1993, happen to be in the non-bailable category. And they have been swept out along with unrelated minor offences and peaceful agitations.

Ever since the Commission ordered the production of the Thackeray files, based on which the state government withdrew the cases against the Sena supremo, the issue has been a subject of heated debate. Justice Srikrishna himself took a stand insisting that the reasons for the withdrawal be made public.

The state initially claimed privilege of the documents but unable to convince the Commission as to why it wanted to do so, it had to give in.

The first set of the so-called controversial documents shed no light whatsoever on the government's action. It recorded the intercourse between the departments of home, the police and the judiciary, which led to the withdrawal of the cases against Thackeray.

With the government's rationale still unclear after two months, the Chief Minister compounded the confusion by testifying that a note on a confidential cabinet discussion contained everything. Again, there was an attempt to prevent an official document, the note, from becoming public. But when its contents were revealed, they were found to be a weak set of justifications that had virtually no relation to the offences claimed to have been committed by Thackeray.

Moreover, the Chief Minister's statement before the Commission two days back and the Sena's statement of case filed through an affidavit four years ago brought to sharp focus the party's contradicting claims in this issue. As pointed out before the Commission by CPM counsel Purandare, ``How can a person who has been charged for spreading communal hatred during the riots pacify the rioters?'' The Chief Minister had stated that it was due to the Sena chief's appeal that the rioters had calmed down.

By failing again to convince the Srikrishna Commission why it withdrew the cases against Thackeray, the government only lends credence to the view that the remote control is functioning with impunity.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.