The Jammu and Kashmir government led by Mehbooba Mufti, in response to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Kashmir High Court Bar Association seeking a ban on pellet guns, has said that firing pellets on the protesting people “is not unconstitutional” and the use of pellet guns “cannot be banned.”
The PDP-BJP government led by Mufti has been facing severe criticism for the indiscriminate use of metal pellets on the protesters during the ongoing uprising, in which seventy-seven people have been killed and thousands injured.
“It is submitted here that the Hon’ble Court cannot guide the law enforcing agencies to act in a particular way/manner. The court being not an expert does not recommend as to how the law and order situations are to be controlled,” J&K government’s Advocate General Jahangir Ganaie, through an affidavit submitted in the High Court, has said.
“(The) fundamental rights do not provide for a license to take law into one’s own hands. It is only a non-violent protest march, which is a fundamental right of person. It is a settled legal position that the courts have to show deference and consideration to the recommendations of an expert committee. In this view of the matter as an expert committee is seized of the matter and having regard to the fact that the issue of use of pellet gun comes within the realm of maintaining law and order situation,”
the affidavit reads.