Appendix B: Report of the Cabinet Sub-Committee to Review the Dabhol Power Project

Appendix C: Selected Recommendations and Conclusions from the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Energy, May 29, 1995

Appendix D: Correspondence Between the Government of India and the World Bank

The most common method used by the police to restrict freedom of expression and freedom of assembly in the district has been to invoke sections 37(1) and 37(3) of the Bombay Police Act—colloquially known as “prohibitory orders” because they permit the police to prohibit various kinds of public assembly.

According to lawyers Human Rights Watch consulted in Bombay, the Bombay Police Act is intended to deter armed gangs and prevent violent riots and other clashes by armed groups, and its provisions reflect these concerns.102 For example, among its provisions, Section 37(1) of the act prohibits the “carrying of arms, cudgels, swords, spears, bludgeons, guns, knives, sticks or lathis, or any other article, which is capable of being used for causing physical violence...the carrying of any corrosive substance or explosives...the carrying, collection and preparation of stones or other missiles or instruments or means of casting or impelling missiles” and empowers the police to “prohibit certain acts for prevention of disorder.” Section 37(3) of the act allows the police to “prohibit any assembly or procession whenever and for so long as it considers such prohibition to be necessary for the preservation of the public order.” However, Section 37(3) cannot be imposed indefinitely and must be renewed at fifteen-day intervals.103

The act also contains provisions that do not allude to violence and can be used to restrict peaceful expression and assembly. Such prohibitions include “public utterance of cries, singing of songs, playing of music” and the “delivery ofharangues, the use of gestures or mimetic representations, and the preparation, exhibition or dissemination of pictures, symbols, placards or any other object or thing which may in the opinion of such authority offend against decency or morality....” These provisions have been used as the justification for criminalizing demonstrations against the Dabhol Power project.

The protests against the project were generally peaceful, however. This was confirmed to Human Rights Watch by the officer-in-charge of the Guhagar police, Assistant Sub-Inspector P.G. Satoshe, the commanding officer over the Maharashtra Police and State Reserve Police Force who deals with the protesters.104 According to Satoshe:

During the agitations, we asked the people to cooperate with the police... There have only been two violent agitations, on January 30 and June 2, [1997] the rest were peaceful.105

The broad loophole of the Bombay Police Act permits its application to those who gather solely to exercise their rights to free expression or assembly. Individuals charged with violating “prohibitory orders” (Section 37) are arrested, and under Section 135 of the act, which authorizes arrest and punishment for violations of Section 37, they are subject to a penalty of up to one year’s imprisonment. Since 1994, sections 37 and 135 have been used to criminalize peaceful demonstrations against the Dabhol Power project. In this context, individuals arrested under Section 37 are released on personal bonds, but their cases remain unresolved because of delays in the judicial process.

The Center for Holistic Studies, a Bombay-based nongovernmental organization, reported that 233 unarmed protesters were arrested under Section 37 and Section 135 on November 8, 1994. Among the protesters were two leaders of the demonstrations, Dr. Vinay Natu, a local BJP member of the legislative assembly and president of an organization to oppose DPC (the Guhagar-Chiplun-Dapoli Parisar Bachav Sangharsh Samiti), and Vithal “Baba” Bhalekar, a recognized leader of fisherpeople in Veldur village who are opposed to the project. They were released the same day on personal bonds.106 It is worth noting that the portion of Section 37 used to justify the arrest was subsection (1) referring to the carrying of arms or explosives or missiles, although the protest was peaceful.

Two days later, on November 10, 1994, police arrested 105 protesters under Section 37 for staging a peaceful demonstration in protest of land acquisition by the state on behalf of DPC and the impact of the project on fisherpeople. They were released on personal bonds the same day.107

Responding immediately to the arrests and expressing their support for the protesters’ grievances, another 650 villagers, led by the former sarpnach (village leader) of Anjanvel village, Mahmood Mastan, peacefully demonstrated later on November 10 at the DPC site, and all of the 650 protesters were arrested under Section 37 on the same day. The demonstrators were released on personal bonds the same day.108

Following these arrests, the district collector (the most senior law enforcement official at the district level) imposed prohibitory orders on Guhagar Taluka (sub-district), Ratnagiri district, under Section 37 of the Bombay Police Act from November 11 to November 23, 1994.109

This pattern would resume in 1997. After the CITU case against the company and the Maharashtra state government was dismissed, the Ratnagiri police imposed Section 37 on Ratnagiri district at fifteen-day intervals beginning on January 6, 1997. The prohibition was extended regularly and was still in force as of October 1998. When Human Rights Watch visited the district in February 1998, police were still regularly arresting protesters under the act.