UP govt committed to rule of law despite HC concern over police encounters Labour minister

Ballia (UP), Feb 3 (PTI) Uttar Pradesh Labour and Employment Minister Anil Rajbhar on Tuesday said the state government would continue to uphold the rule of law, responding to the Allahabad High Court's recent observations on police encounter cases.
    Reacting to the court's concern over a pattern of police encounters in the state, Rajbhar said the police do not fire upon anyone after apprehending them.
    "If someone fires at the police, the police fire in self-defence," he told mediapersons on the sidelines of a programme in Ubhaon here.
    "Ensuring the rule of law is the responsibility of the government, and we will continue to do so," he said.
    The minister's remarks came in the backdrop of the Allahabad High Court last month expressing concern over incidents in which accused persons were allegedly shot in the leg during police encounters as a form of punishment.
    The court had said such a practice was completely unacceptable, as the power to punish rests solely with courts and not with the police.
    A bench of Justice Arun Kumar Deshwal, while hearing bail pleas of Mirzapur resident Raju and another person from Jhansi, had observed that police interference in the judicial domain was impermissible.
    The court had noted that while the state government had not issued any directive to police to shoot accused persons as punishment, some officers appeared to be misusing power either to draw the attention of senior officials or to gain public sympathy by portraying the accused as injured in encounters.
    Rajbhar also claimed that Uttar Pradesh's unemployment rate had dropped to its lowest level since Independence and was now below the national average.
    He said since 2017, the BJP-led government in the state provided more than eight lakh government jobs, facilitated employment for over 14 lakh people in the private sector, and offered career counselling to about 26 lakh unemployed youths.
    He added that the number of people engaged in self-employment in the state had crossed 2.5 crore.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)