A Year After the Leh Firing, Sonam Wangchuk Demands the Justice Chauhan Inquiry Report and ₹1 Crore Compensation

The news

Leh / New Delhi. Climate activist Sonam Wangchuk on Sunday demanded the release of the report of the judicial inquiry into the September 24, 2025 violence in Leh, higher compensation for the victims’ families, and withdrawal of criminal cases against those who, he said, were not involved in the violence, The Indian Express and The Hindu report. Four people were killed in police firing during protests over the demand for Statehood and for Ladakh’s inclusion in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution; The Hindu puts the injured at around 80, while the Express, citing Mr. Wangchuk’s statement, says another person died by suicide and scores were injured. The inquiry is headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice B.S. Chauhan. “Almost a year later, Ladakh is still waiting for the findings. Who ordered the firing? Were all the prescribed stages of crowd control exhausted before live ammunition was used? Why were people hit in vital parts of their bodies?” Mr. Wangchuk said, according to The Hindu. “Let the people know the truth.” He called the ₹15 lakh announced by the Ladakh administration for the next of kin of each of the four people killed inadequate. “Can ₹15 lakh ever compensate a mother for her son, a wife for her husband, or children for their father?” he asked, and demanded that families be compensated on the same principle as those affected by the NEET paper leak, “who were assured ₹1 crore”. On prosecutions, his statement says 87 people were identified as accused and 81 were arrested and faced criminal proceedings; the administration has approved withdrawal of cases against 20. Mr. Wangchuk also questioned his own detention under the National Security Act (NSA), a law allowing detention without trial to prevent threats to security or public order. The Express says he was detained on September 26, 2025, and held in Jodhpur Central Jail for nearly six months; the detention order was revoked on March 14, 2026 while it was being challenged before the Supreme Court. The Hindu says he was arrested under the NSA on September 27, “two days after the violence”; the papers thus differ by a day. “If I really was such a danger to national security or public order that I had to be taken away from Ladakh and kept under the NSA, then why am I free today?” he asked, seeking accountability for the six months. This story follows this magazine’s September 22 card on the Centre’s proposal for a new Article 371K for Ladakh; what is new is the anniversary demand for the report, compensation and case withdrawal. The syllabus link is GS3 on internal security and the role of security forces, and GS2 on fundamental rights and special provisions for regions.

Static syllabus linkage

1. The National Security Act, 1980 permits preventive detention for up to twelve months. Section 3 of the NSA empowers the Central or State government, and District Magistrates or Commissioners of Police if so empowered by the State, to detain a person to prevent him from acting in a manner prejudicial to the defence of India, relations with foreign powers, the security of India or the State, public order, or the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the community. An order made by a DM or Commissioner lapses unless approved by the State government within twelve days. The grounds must ordinarily be communicated within five days, and in exceptional cases with reasons recorded not later than fifteen days, so that the detenu can make a representation. The case must be referred to an Advisory Board of three persons qualified to be High Court judges, and the maximum period of detention is twelve months from the date of detention.
2. Article 22 allows preventive detention as an exception, with procedural safeguards. Article 22(1) and (2) guarantee an arrested person the right to be told the grounds of arrest, to consult a lawyer and to be produced before a magistrate within 24 hours, but Article 22(3) excludes preventive detention from these protections. Instead, Article 22(4) bars detention beyond three months unless an Advisory Board reports sufficient cause, and Article 22(5) requires the grounds to be communicated as soon as may be and an opportunity for representation. Preventive detention is thus the only situation in which the Constitution itself permits deprivation of liberty without trial. Courts review such detentions through habeas corpus under Articles 32 and 226, and treat any lapse in these safeguards as fatal to the order.
3. Ladakh is a Union Territory without a legislature, and the Sixth Schedule is the protection it seeks. The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 created Ladakh as a Union Territory without a legislature from October 31, 2019, administered by a Lieutenant Governor under Article 239. The Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Councils of Leh and Kargil exist under a separate statute but have limited powers. The Sixth Schedule, applied through Articles 244(2) and 275(1), provides for Autonomous District Councils with legislative, judicial and executive powers over land, forests and customs in tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram. Ladakh’s population is overwhelmingly Scheduled Tribe, which is the basis of the demand; the Centre’s proposal for an Article 371K, reported earlier this month, would be an alternative model of special provision.
4. A judicial commission and the rules on use of force are the accountability tools for police firing. Under the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1952, the appropriate government may appoint a commission to inquire into a definite matter of public importance, and the report together with an action taken memorandum must be laid before Parliament or the State legislature within six months of its submission. A commission’s findings are recommendatory and not binding, and governments sometimes delay or never publish them; the law does not say where a report goes when a Union Territory has no legislature. The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 carries forward the old Criminal Procedure Code scheme under which an executive magistrate or police officer may order an unlawful assembly to disperse and use civil force, and may seek the armed forces only as a last resort, with the least possible force. The UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, 1990 set the international standard that lethal force may be used only when strictly unavoidable to protect life.

Why UPSC loves this

1. GS3 asks about the challenges of managing internal security in border areas. UPSC has asked about the role of external state and non-state actors in internal security, and about security challenges in border regions. Ladakh, bordering China and Pakistan, shows how domestic discontent in a frontier region itself becomes a security question.
2. GS2 regularly asks about preventive detention and fundamental rights. Questions on the balance between individual liberty and national security, and on laws such as the NSA and UAPA, recur. A detention revoked after six months, while under challenge in the Supreme Court, is a clean case study.
3. Special provisions for regions are a recurring Prelims and Mains area. The Fifth and Sixth Schedules, Article 371 and its sub-clauses, and the status of Union Territories are frequently tested. The Ladakh debate, now including a proposed Article 371K, ties all three together.

Analysis

1. An unpublished inquiry report defeats the very purpose for which it was ordered. A judicial inquiry is appointed after a police firing precisely to restore public trust by establishing facts independently. If the report stays unpublished a year later, the state gets the credit for ordering it without the discipline of answering it. Mr. Wangchuk’s three questions — who ordered the firing, whether graded steps were exhausted, why people were hit in vital parts — are the standard tests of proportionality, and only the report can answer them. The counter-view is that publication could prejudice pending prosecutions of the 81 arrested; but that concern can be met by redacting names, not by withholding findings on the use of force.
2. The revoked detention raises a question the law does not easily answer. The NSA is preventive: it detains not for what a person did but for what the authority believes he might do. Mr. Wangchuk’s argument — if I was a danger, why am I free; if not, who answers for six months — exposes the weakness of preventive detention, which is that its justification is never tested at a trial. Revocation while the Supreme Court was hearing the challenge meant the court never ruled on whether the grounds were valid. The state may argue that the threat to public order passed as tension eased, which is legally sufficient. But when a detention ends just before judicial scrutiny, it invites the suspicion that it would not have survived it, and that erodes trust in the law itself.
3. Compensation should follow a principle, not a comparison of headlines. Mr. Wangchuk’s demand for ₹1 crore rests on a comparison with the NEET paper leak victims, which is rhetorically powerful but not a legal standard. Indian courts have awarded compensation for deaths caused by state agents as a public-law remedy for violation of Article 21, and the logical principle is that death at the hands of the state deserves at least the compensation a court would grant, not an ad hoc sum. ₹15 lakh may be below that benchmark in many cases, especially for young earners. A transparent formula for compensation in police firing deaths, applied across States, would take the issue out of politics.
4. Mass prosecution after protest violence can turn a public-order problem into a lasting grievance. Eighty-seven accused and 81 arrests in a small society like Ladakh’s touch many families. Mr. Wangchuk’s own distinction — prosecute those with credible evidence of violence, review cases against bystanders and peacemakers — is the one any sound prosecution policy should adopt. The administration’s approval of withdrawal for 20 suggests it accepts this in part. Delay in deciding the rest keeps the grievance alive, which in a border region is a security cost, not only a legal one.
5. In a frontier region, legitimacy is itself a security asset. Ladakh borders China and Pakistan, and its people have historically cooperated closely with the armed forces, including as scouts and informants. Alienation there has strategic consequences that do not arise in the hinterland. The Centre’s reported Article 371K proposal shows it is looking for a political settlement, but a settlement signed while the firing report is withheld will carry less credibility. Publishing the report, fixing compensation by principle and closing weak cases would cost the state little and buy considerable trust.

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