Congress preparing ‘rapid response teams’ of lawyers to help party workers, activists

New Delhi: The Congress is preparing ‘rapid response teams’ of lawyers across the country to help party workers as well as human rights and transparency activists facing legal troubles, besides taking measures to fight fake news.

The party’s Law, Human Rights and RTI Department headed by senior lawyer and MP Abhishek Singhvi is spearheading the efforts to replace the existing “ad-hoc system” where the party scrambles to find lawyers to defend and aid leaders and workers who are targeted while performing political duties.

Singhvi on Sunday chaired a meeting of the reconstituted Law, Human Rights and RTI Cell, which was also attended by Congress General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh, Congress Working Committee member Syed Naseer Hussain, and AICC Secretary Vineet Punia.

The seven-member senior panel of the Department, which was constituted on August 17, also includes senior leaders Salman Khurshid, Vivek Tankha and K T S Tulsi, while an 11-member Executive panel has Law, Human Rights and RTI Department Secretary Muhammad Ali Khan among others as members.

After the meeting, Singhvi said the Department will be “organised, structural and decentralised” and as per initial plans, will go down to the district level where teams are set up. He said there will be rapid response teams across the country besides a special focus on tackling fake news.

The immediate task would be to address issues related to the upcoming Assembly elections, he said.

Functionaries in the Department said they are in the process of expanding the legal team of Congress across the country besides reaching out to legal fraternity, RTI, and human rights activists to be part of the party.

The plan to have rapid response teams arose as it was found that the existing system is ad-hoc and party leaders scramble to find a lawyer when cases are foisted on local workers or when they are harassed.

“Once we have ‘rapid response teams’ at the local level, we can pool legal resources to help them. Also, our teams will file cases related to fake news, especially with social media being used to spread misinformation. The Department will be proactive in filing cases for taking down such posts,” a senior functionary said.