The state Legislatures or Parliament cannot be held in contempt of court for simply passing a law, the Supreme Court has ruled as it closed the Salwa Judum case after 18 years.

The court said this while disposing of a 2012 contempt plea filed by sociologist and former Delhi University Professor Nandini Sundar and others against the Chhattisgarh government’s 2011 Auxiliary Armed Police Force Act.

In its May 15 ruling that was released recently, the bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Satish Chandra Sharma said that state Legislatures had the “plenary powers to pass an enactment” and would have the force of law as long as it “has not been declared to be ultra vires the Constitution or, in any way, null and void by a Constitutional Court”.

“We must remember that central to the legislative function is the power of the legislative organ to enact as well as amend laws,” the court said. “Any law made by the Parliament or a state Legislature cannot be held to be an act of contempt of a court, including this court, for simply making the law.”

In 2005, the Salwa Judum, a state-supported civil vigilante campaign, was launched with an aim of targeting villages seen as harbouring Maoists. Armed vigilantes allegedly torched homes and forced villagers to flee to government-run camps.

Translated as “purification hunt” in Gondi language, Salwa Judum was presented by the state government as a spontaneous movement by the region’s tribal community against the Maoists. However, human rights activists accused the Salwa Judum of coercing people into leaving their villages and supporting the group. With the tribal community split between both sides, there were several deaths for months.

In May 2007, Sundar and others filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court alleging that the state government was using men from the tribal community as cannon-fodder in its fight against the Maoists.

Four months later, the state government enacted the Chhattisgarh Police Act to absorb many of the Judum activists as special police officers.

This was struck down by the Supreme Court on July 5, 2011, saying that the state actions amounted to “an abdication of constitutional responsibilities” and that it represents “an extreme form of transgression of constitutional boundaries”.

The court also said that Salwa Judum was unconstitutional and ordered the group to be disbanded.

Amid criticism, the Chhattisgarh Cabinet on July 22, 2011, promulgated an ordinance to introduce the Auxiliary Armed Police Force Act. Under the new Act, the special police officers were recruited as assistant constables on better terms and conditions.

Sundar then filed a contempt plea before the Supreme Court in 2012 accusing the Chhattisgarh government of failing to stop its support for civil vigilante groups such as the Judum in its fight against Maoists.

The plea argued that the 2011 law had simply legalised the existence of special police officers instead of complying with the court’s order of winding up their activities.

Other petitioners in the case included author Ramachandra Guha and former Andhra Pradesh Tribal Affairs Secretary EAS Sharma, The Indian Express reported.

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