I remember having talked about perfect crime on this blog sometime ago. May be my readers have lost it. There are other two types of wrong laws in the making in our democracy. They are Illegal Laws and Negative laws.

In this post I want to chat on Illegal Laws. Illegal law is that law which is made to appease a section of society at the cost of other section of society. Making such laws is a common practice in most other governments but in democracy this law is objectionable. During royal, despotic, dictatorship, foreign and autocratic regimes these laws are often made to suit needs and demands of ruling class and their friends at the detriment of rest population. However, when we have accepted democracy with secularism as its guiding principle any law that makes differences among different sections of societies is not allowed. That practice is considered undemocratic. Nevertheless, we see many illegal laws are being made even during democratic rule. People should be aware of this malpractice. During other regimes these laws are made without any fictitious explanation to justify them because it is not necessary. During secular democracy however, law makers endeavor to give some fancied reasoning to justify them because they know that this is not democratic practice, sort of guilty consciousness makes them give those reasons. Immediate example of one such law is of prohibiting slaughter of bovines and even prohibiting eating and storing beef; this law is not legally acceptable even so, our president of government of India has recently signed for it. Obviously to appease certain section of pressure groups and its lobby.

To make my point clear I should give some more examples of such illegal laws passed during our democratic rule. Take for example rule that makes helmet compulsory. This law is made to increase business of helmet manufacturers. Actually governments has no right to interfere about what type of safety a rider should have on road. It is none of government's concern. Two wheeler riders are major and therefore, this type of violation of their rights is definitely not a democratic act. Only an insurance company may make helmet compulsory to riders because, they have to compensate rider in case of death in an accident. This example clearly shows how government machinery is used as a marketing agency. A government should not work as a marketing agency for the benefit of any business. Safety of rider is no concern of any government. If this argument that is used to justify compulsion of helmet allowed to continue then many other things will become compulsory to people. My legal advisers told me, a government may make suggestion for safety of riders but under no condition a democratic rule has right to make such things compulsory; a large section of society is not interested in this protection; we see much protests all over the country against this compulsion. This clearly indicates that this law is made against interest of some section of society. And so, this is an illegal law by the definition of this term.

Iodized salt is one other example of illegal law. As per my information Tata Chemical Company instigated our then government to bring this law. What a citizen should eat is not to be decided by any government. Obviously this is an illegal law. Many reasons (actually excuses) are provided but they are not to be forced on people. Again I may say government may suggest for use of iodized salt but cannot make it compulsory. Much resistance we see from people on this law and so now they have relaxed that law.

Recently a law to ban cow slaughter is mooted by present government of Maharashtra state. Again, we see that this law is being made to appease a certain section of society probably Brahman and Jains as against the interests of many other societies as well as our economy. To protect our democracy, we must resist this mentality of misusing right to make laws by assembly or parliament. If we fail to stop this tendency many more such partisan laws will be made by vested interests creating situation of tension in the society. If we cherish our democracy we must resist any tendency to exploit this right of parliament and assembly to make such partisan laws.

As we know father of modern economics has written in his book, "The Wealth of Nations"; he had defended smuggling and corruption as a legitimate activity in the face of “unnatural” legislation. Adam Smith has called Illegal Law, "unnatural legislation". This also explains why we have corruption in our country. So long as we continue to exploit law making process and law enforcing machinery for the benefit of ruler class, corruption and smuggling will continue in our country.

That section of society affected by such partisan laws are going to raise their protest in the way they want, creating at times law and order situation. Whom to blame for such illegal laws? All people who want to protect our democracy must increase their voice against such practice.

List of types of laws we have, natural law, illegal law, bad law, wrong controls. We should understand meanings of these terms. These laws are responsible for corruption in the country. Therefore to eradicate corruption in system we must first cleanse our legal system. If we try to forcibly remove corruption from society while these defective laws continue law and order problems may rise and so eradication of these laws is priority in the process.

You may contact me on my Email ID given below,

ashokkothare@gmail.com