Hartal - offence under IPC?

Political parties waste a lot energy and time calling for hartals, people conserve a lot of energy and time by sitting at home, business establishment burn a lot of manhours by the total paralysed situation and now the judiciary is wasting its time and energy on hartals. Everyone knows this is not going to help because a hartal struck party will always use it as their potent weapon - whether the courts give its verdicts for or against it. A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court referred to a Full Bench a batch of writ petitions against holding of hartals by political and other parties in the State. The writ petitions were referred to a Full Bench by a bench comprising Chief Justice H. L. Dattu and Justice A.K. Basheer. The court was dissatisfied with the arrangements made by the government during hartals.The court orally observed that hartals were causing untold difficulties to people. People did not have confidence to come out of their homes on hartal days. The State was unable to create confidence among the public, it added.The petitions included those filed by Sathyavan Kottarakkara and the Anti-Hartal Campaign Committee. Mr. Sathyavan Kottarakara said that though bandhs and forced hartals were declared unconstitutional, political and other organisations still held such hartals.He sought to make forced hartals an offence under the Indian Penal Code. He also sought a direction for creating a separate fund for paying compensation to the victims of violence during hartals and bandhs and to recover the costs from persons who called such hartals by invoking the provisions of the Kerala Revenue Recovery Act.