The Rights of the Deceased: Moral Rights Incidental to Copyright Law
- Vanshika Agrawal
- 2024-04-25
Criminal Law-
“Migrant workers throw stones at police in India in protest against lockdown”1, “India extends world’s biggest lockdown, ignites protest by migrant workers”2,
“Lockdown 3.0 begins, migrants protest in Gujarat and Kerala: ‘Take us home’.” 3, etc.
These were some of the most prominent headlines that made the news and caught the eye of the public. But what was going on? What made migrant workers violent against police authorities in a magnitude that the police had to resort to methods such as “lathi charge”? Amid the pandemic, when the whole nation went into a lockdown, all businesses and factories were shut and everyone was made to sit at home, the workers who migrate to the cities to earn their livelihood started losing their jobs. It is evident that when all services came to a halt, the workers would not have any place to earn money from. In such a situation, workers too sought to go home and stay with their families. But due to the lockdown, all transportation, trains, buses, and borders has been close so
as to eliminate any type of person-to-person contact.
One could argue that this takes away one’s freedom to move around the nation and is against the law, but India had declared the Coronavirus outbreak as a ‘Notified Disaster’4 which meant it came under the ambit of The Disaster Management Act, 2005. Sections 35, 62, and 72 of The Disaster Management Act, 2005 state that “The Central Government is allowed to take any measure that it deems necessary, irrespective of any law in force for the purposes of Disaster Management.” 5 This gave the Government the right to close all borders and
stop all sorts of transportation so as to reduce the spread and protect the people.
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2 Sections 269 and Section 270
as COVID-19 was spread all over India, it had become an epidemic due to which it also came under the ambit of The Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897. Section 2 and 2A of the same provide the Central Government with the authority to take any measure that
it thinks necessary when the ordinary provisions of the law are insufficient to control the spread.6
Under these circumstances, if the Indian Government stops workers from traveling from one place to another, they are within the provisions of the law. Section 3 of The Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 also states that “If any person disobeys the orders made during the Epidemic, shall be punishable under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code.” 7 Section 188 of the IPC deals with a person disobeying the orders of a public servant irrespective of his intention to produce harm to an extent that he knows his acts are likely to cause harm.8 In the above situation, the workers were well aware of how quickly the virus could be transferred
but still chose to appear in large gatherings thus making them liable under the said act.
Besides these, the police and government officials relied on Sections 269 and 270 of The Indian Penal Code so as to stop the protests by the workers. Section 269 of the IPC states that “whoever unlawfully or negligently does any act which he knows or has reason to believe is likely to spread the infection of any disease dangerous to life, shall be punished.” 9 In the above case of the protests by workers, by bringing out gatherings, they were doing an unlawful act that was prohibit under Section 188, secondly, a reasonable man who knows
how the disease has been spreading can be expected not to do the same thing. Thirdly, there had been reports that showed that COVID-19 had been causing deaths of people in huge numbers.
Taking all this into consideration, the workers are bound to be punish under the say section and the reliance by the officials on this section is one of significance. Similar to this is Section 270 of the IPC that was being use by the officials so as to control the spread of the disease
due to the acts done by the workers. 10
“Mumbai migrant crisis: Police register FIR against 1,000 workers over lockdown violation.” On the day when the Prime Minister extended the lockdown till 3rd May 2020,
migrant workers had become furious because their chance to go back home had been taken away. Due to this, more than 1000 workers had gathered
near Bandra railway station in Mumbai in defiance of the protocols and norms of the COVID-19 lockdown. As a result of this, a Bandra police official say that FIRs have been register against
such workers under Sections 143, 147, 149, 188, 186 of the Indian Penal code.
A similar situation has seen in the country’s capital, Delhi, where the migrants workers too has violate section 188 of the IPC leading to a registering of 150 FIRs under that and a detaining of 3,811 workers on 29th March 2020 alone.11 Delhi had also seen public vandalism of property where, according to a report, migrant workers had allegedly
set three shelters on fire. Workers had also jumped into the Yamuna river after altercations with officials over food
which led to the drowning of a person in the river.
The use of Criminal Law is of immense importance so as to control the situation at hand. In the present situation, the workers had been disobeying the orders may by the government and should thus be punish. If the public servants did not have Criminal law to rely on so as to arrest and
detain the workers, the workers would be instigate to do more and cause more harm.
The laws use by the officials were done to keep in check the behavior of the crowd and to reduce the intensity. Even though most of the offenses were bailable, the workers did not have money to get bail. The migrant workers were not pay their salaries or wages by their masters and
were thus in dire need of money. If they would have been arrest
by public officials, they would not even have the money to get bail and
would have to stay in lock up.
This could delay their journey to get to their homes which could be one of the fears that would deter some workers to not go against the law. On the other hand, if the officials did not resort to the provisions of the law, the workers would not fear anything
as they would not know the consequences of their acts. Thus, Criminal law must be use in protests, riots, and
unlawful assemblies so as to have a good chance of controlling the situation.
On the other hand, the usage of criminal law in this particular situation could also be harmful or
bring about unwanted consequences. During coronavirus, the government’s main objective
was to control the spread of the disease and to contain it, but by arresting offenders, who cannot afford their bail, the situation is just exacerbate further. This is so because, when the arrest workers cannot come up with enough money for their bail, it will lead to them being sent to prison. When the worker goes from a place of the excess crowd, the chance of the worker spreading the virus
among the other jailers increases enormously and
will lead to the extreme opposite of the actual goal of the officials.
Secondly, criminal law is largely premise on the idea of “retributive justice”, that is, making the offenders
pay (in-kind) for their acts, which is also counterproductive
to the objective sought to be achieve in this particular circumstance.12
Thus, in the midst of a pandemic when the workers took to the streets in order to fight for their right to go back home, the situation turned
into a violent one. This led the public officials to rely on Criminal law
as a means of controlling the crowd, sometimes to the limits of the breaking point. Under such situations, the main sections of the IPC that were use are, s. 143, 147, 149, 186, 188, 169, 270.
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