Section 144 gets 5-star treatment

Section 144 is all the rage these days. No self-respecting state claiming to have ‘law and order’ under order will keep itself away from using this paradoxically overused brahmastra. For those who usually don’t linger over the editorials above this column, Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) establishes the power of the magistrate of a state to prohibit the gathering of four or more people in a specified area deemed to be unsafe or dangerous. But while the clampdown law is applied to streets, neighbourhoods and areas in a city or town, in the fair city of Kolkata, they clamped down a hotel with Section 144 earlier this week.

It turns out that a few weeks ago, a member of the staff of Taj Bengal was harassed by a fellow member. Two wings of the state ruling party’s workers’ union stepped in – one for the alleged victim, one for the alleged harasser. It also turns out that the two parties had a major row, reportedly even coming to blows, inside the hotel’s precincts.

It was the hotel management who then pleaded that curfew be imposed in their own hotel. How this may have affected other hotel guests, what imposing Section 144 would do for the establishment’s brand apparently outweighed the trouble of being the venue of two warring Trinamool factions. What next? Dialling 999 and calling for 144 when there’s a quarrel at home?