The Patna High Court dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed seeking a direction to the respondents for reconsidering the decision to shift Pasraha Police Station from the present site to another site within Khagaria District.
It is the contention of the petitioners that in shifting the police station, the people living within the Pasraha area are deprived of Equality before Law, Equal Protection of Laws and results in violation of their Fundamental Rights guaranteed under the Constitution.
The Pasraha Police Station was formed in the year 1978 and the land in which the police station was established was acquired under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894. There are encroachments on the land and the present attempt to shift the police station is to protect the encroachers, is the contention.
The Division Bench of Chief Justice K. Vinod Chandran and Justice Partha Sarthy noted that even the averments in the petition indicate that the shifting of the police station is for establishment of a model police station. The Bench does not think that by mere shifting of a police station, there would be any deprivation of the Fundamental Rights guaranteed to the residents of the locality in which the police station is now situated.
“Wherever the police station is situated, the police personnel have the duty to ensure law and order within the area of its jurisdiction. It does not lie in the mouth of the residents of the locality to seek for establishment of a police station at a particular place or location. These are all policy matters in which the Courts would seldom interfere unless there is clear arbitrariness, illegality or colourable exercise of power, evident from the facts coming out”, the Bench observed.