The Electric Chair

Tomorrow is a strike. If you dont keep your shop / office closed someone may come and beat you and your office up (the word IS afterall strike!). If this happens, do you have any legal recourse? Or to put it the other way, is it illegal to keep your office open when a bandh is declared? Can someone take you to court for keeping your office open on a bandh? AC tells me that there is a government approved bandh and if someone keeps his office open on such a bandh then it is illegal.

Is that really so? Has anyone - even one person been taken to court for keeping his office open on a bandh day? If not, then how can it be illegal? If there is no legal recourse against an act, it cant be an illegal act. If there is a legal recourse, what is it? Is there a fine? Is there imprisonment? Is there both? What is that act which specifies all this? How come a mention of whether a ban is govt approved or not is never mentioned? How come it is never mentioned that contravention of this ban can attract the following penalties?

If the bandh is govt approved, who approves these bans? Is there a special ministry/department which does this work? Is there some laid down criteria which helps the ministry decide whether to approve this bandh or not? Do they have to even record their reasons anywhere? Is there a maximum number of days that can be declared bandh per year? If so, how many? If not, can I locate the concerned person/ministry who approves this to declare frequent bandhs? Is it actually possible? Well it may be possible if I was rich enough if I could afford the expectably expensive bribes. But then if I was that rich, I wouldnt be working, and then why would I want more bandhs?

Cha!

# posted by A Chrysanthemum by any other name... : 12:45 PM