New Delhi, April 25: The Supreme Court Monday pulled up the central and the Chhattisgarh governments for taking recourse to an antiquated police act of 1861 to appoint special police officers (SPOs) and arming them with weapons in the trouble-torn areas of Chhattisgarh.
An apex court bench of Justice B. Sudarshan Reddy and Justice S.S. Nijjar said the act was made for colonial policing and wondered if after the framing of the constitution, the said act had any validity.
The court expressed its serious reservations whether the appointment of SPOs without any accountability was sustainable in the eyes of the law. The court said this in the course of a hearing seeking the disbanding of SPOs and the so-called Salwa Judum movement in the Maoist-hit Dantewada and other regions of the state.
Pulling up the central government for providing finances to the state government to pay such SPOs, the court asked the centre to state the legality of such SPOs and the expenditure being spent on them and their arming.
——-IANS