Posts Tagged ‘UAPA’

28 Jul

Of Kangaroo justice and Kafkaesque trials

Posted by vramani in government, human interest, political economy, public affairs, public policy. Tagged: , , , , .

While the origin of the phrase “kangaroo court” is still not certain, the term is quite clearly defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “a mock court in which the principles of law and justice are disregarded or perverted.” I would modify the term to “kangaroo justice” where due process of law is given short shrift.

Three incidents in recent history make us wonder whether we live in an era of kangaroo justice:  (1) In December 2019, four men accused of the rape and murder of a young woman were shot dead by the police when, while in judicial custody, they were being taken to the scene of the crime near Hyderabad for a reconstruction of events as part of the investigation. The subsequent judicial enquiry concluded that these men were summarily eliminated and indicted ten police personnel in this connection. (2) In April 2023, Atiq Ahmed, a former Member of Parliament, and his brother, Ashraf Ahmed, in judicial custody in connection with several crimes, were shot dead by assailants posing as media persons, in the presence of UP police personnel, while being taken for medical examination to hospital at the unearthly hour of midnight.  (3) 84 year old Father Stan Swamy, an accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, passed away in July 2021, after a series of ailments, while in judicial custody, without being given bail on medical grounds.

In the first two instances, summary executions by uniformed persons and by ordinary citizens made a mockery of the rule of law. Legal processes were unfortunately short-circuited to render instant justice (injustice?). While there was public support for the two actions, this does not behoove a democratic society that ought to be totally committed to the rule of law. The third case is even more unfortunate: an octogenarian social worker, who was not questioned by the NIA during his incarceration for eight months in Taloja prison near Mumbai, was refused bail even when it was apparent that his health was failing and that his release on bail posed no threat to the state or society.

“The wheels of justice grind slowly, but grind exceedingly fine” is a metaphor attributed to both ancient Greek and Chinese philosophers, acknowledging the slow pace of delivering justice, though justice is finally done. In the Indian context, delivery of criminal justice is often excruciatingly slow, with the main stakeholders at the pre-trial stage — the police, victims and their families and the accused — left with a feeling of frustrated helplessness as cases drag on for years. The phenomenon of ‘encounter specialists’ taking the law into their hands to dispose of criminals and of public lynching of notorious ant-social elements are but symptoms of a deeper malaise. Shoddy investigation of crimes, prompted sometimes by political pressure and sometimes by the lure of lucre, and interminably long periods between the commission of a crime and the final verdict of guilt seriously affect the credibility of the criminal justice system.

It is against this unsatisfactory background that recourse is had to the arrest of persons for even petty crimes and/or where they are not habitual offenders, just to satisfy public sentiment. Once arrested, the accused remain in jail because, in many cases, they cannot manage to give the surety/security required for grant of bail. The courts and the police are reluctant to trust the release on bail of persons on personal bonds/undertakings. Non-granting of bail and overcrowding in jails are two sides of the same coin. According to the Bureau of Police Research and Development, in 2022, India housed 5.73 lakh persons in its jails as against a prison capacity of 4.36 lakhs. The National Crime Records Bureau has reported that the proportion of people in jails, who are not convicted, rose from 33% in 1947 to 66% in 2012 and 76% in 2022.

More disturbing is the increasing trend of arrests of those deemed by the ruling dispensation to be opposed to them politically or those who raise their voice against actions of those in power that smack of restraint on or misuse of constitutional rights — these range from politicians of opposition parties to “anti-nationals” and “urban naxals”. The draconian provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on grant of bail keep those accused under these Acts in prison for years on end. Under both laws, the court has to be satisfied, before releasing the accused on bail, that a prima facie case of guilt is not made out by the prosecution: this has led to a situation today where courts at all levels are reluctant to grant bail, never mind the provisions for bail and bonds under the newly enacted Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) (or its predecessor Act, the Code of Criminal Procedure). It has long been a judicial precedent that bail ought to be refused only where (a) the offence is likely to be repeated while on bail; (b) the accused may abscond; (c) witnesses may be influenced; (d) evidence may be tampered with. The Hindu newspaper has highlighted (September 10, 2022) the abysmal conviction rates of 3% for those arrested under UAPA between 2018 and 2020, and 0.05% under PMLA until March 2022. As a consequence of the stringent provisions for grant of bail, the accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, Umar Khalid in the Delhi Riots case, AAP politicians Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia in the Delhi liquor policy and former Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren have been in jail for months and years on end without commencement of trial. The eagerness of a state like Maharashtra to enact the Special Public Security Act, modeled on similar legislation in Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Telangana, with provisions for keeping lower courts from intervening in executive actions under the Act, does not bode well for civil liberties of citizens.

What is clearly required to safeguard the right to liberty of citizens are three sets of legislation to check abuse of authority:

(1) Requiring the courts to reach a preliminary conclusion about the possible guilt of the accused under the UAPA/PMLA vitiates the judicial process of a fair trial. It is essential to delete the proviso to Section 43 D(5) of the UAPA which reads “Provided that such accused person shall not be released on bail or on his own bond if the Court, on a perusal of the case diary or the report made under Section 173 of the Code is of the opinion that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the accusation against such person is prima facie true.” Similarly, Section 45 (ii) of the PMLA which reads “where the Public Prosecutor opposes the application, the court is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing that he (sic) is not guilty of such offence and that he is not likely to commit any offence while on bail;” deserves to be removed from the statute book.

(2) The right to bail must be enshrined as a fundamental right, under either Article 21 or 22 of the Constitution of India. This will ensure that special laws do not tamper with the right to bail of an accused, which should be governed only by laws of general application like the BNSS.

(3) India, unfortunately, has no statute governing tort law. Legislation must be put in place which provides for legal damages in the form of monetary compensation for confinement in prison which does not result in conviction. This compensation would be payable by the state. However, where a miscarriage of justice which leads to incarceration is established in a court of law as motivated by mala fides on the part of specific government functionaries or other individuals, compensation to the affected party would also be payable by the concerned persons. The same principle of individual as well as state liability would apply to all deaths in police/judicial custody that are attributable to gross negligence or deliberate actions in violation of the rule of law by the guardians of law or other persons.

Since it is evident that the executive at the Union and State levels seems to lack both the moral authority and the resolve to ensure that law enforcement agencies do not overstep their powers, it is high time that the legislature and the judiciary step in to ensure that the ordinary citizen is protected from arbitrary actions that interfere with her/his enjoyment of personal liberty. This will be a lasting tribute to the framers of the Constitution of India in the seventy fifth year of the Republic of India.

 

 

 

 

23 Jan

Running with the Hares, Hunting with the Hounds – A Dangerous Game

Posted by vramani in government, political economy, public affairs, public policy. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

I know it has become a pastime, especially among those sympathetic to or following the present ruling dispensation, to lay the blame for all India’s ills at the door of the Indian National Congress and its presiding deities, the Nehru-Gandhi family. We may pass over the apparent errors of India’s first Prime Minister, including his neglect of primary education and agriculture and his obsession with the public sector, not to mention his disastrous tryst with the Chinese, relying on incompetent advisers. But what, even for true-blue liberals, is not so forgettable are the errors of commission and omission over the last forty years, which have landed the country in crisis after crisis. In trying to be all things to all people, the Congress has been withering away, in the best traditions of Marx’s Communist state.

Let us start with its missteps in Punjab in the late 1970s/early 1980s, followed by the Shah Bano-Ram Janmabhoomi fiascos of the 1980s. Catering to what it thought were specific constituencies, the Congress played with fire and, as expected, sustained severe burns. It forfeited the support of the Sikhs after the storming of the Golden Temple and the pogrom of Sikhs in Delhi in 1984 and alienated moderate Muslims with its anti-woman stance in the Shah Bano case. It then provided oxygen to a weakened BJP by opening the locks of the Ram Temple, followed by a spell of masterly inaction when the Babri Masjid was being demolished. The electorate rightly banished it to the boondocks for eight years, till its return in 2004.

But this blog is not about the past; it is about how the Congress party refuses to learn from its past mistakes. Four recent incidents highlight its continued bumbling and raise serious doubts in the mind of the swing voter about the capabilities of this party to govern the country for the next five years. After managing to secure power in three Hindi heartland states, one would have hoped that the new broom would sweep clean. But there seems to be no effort (at least not in public view) or intention to implement the rule of law in dealing with vigilante rowdyism. Following up on the prosecution of lynchers would have sent a clear message to those who indulged in murder under previous ruling regimes. Not only was this not done, there was the recent incident of film personality Naseeruddin Shah being prevented from participating in the Ajmer Literature Festival. The Chief Minister tweeted weakly about his commitment to the rule of law. But there was no firm police action to make it clear to the protesting hoodlums that their nonsense would not be tolerated. Added to this is the continued ambivalence of the new Congress governments on the “beef ban”. The Rajasthan government seems to have gone further. Newspaper reports speak of its efforts to felicitate those who shelter cows; there is no discussion on reviving the cattle industry and restoring the livelihoods of millions from the minority and disadvantaged communities, while guaranteeing protection to the cow, if the intention was to assuage majority community feelings as well.

The approach to the Sabarimala issue highlights a similar lack of conviction. The party of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru is not able to come out with unequivocal support for the right of women to worship at the shrine even after a Supreme Court judgement. Nor is it able to provide a public forum for a reasoned discussion on possible solutions. Caught between the Scylla of belief and the Charybdis of the rule of law, the party has surrendered its moral authority to regressive religious forces. In the process, it has ensured that it will gain the support of neither the pro-changers (especially its women segments) or the conservative no-changers.

A strong enunciation of its belief in the right to equality of all humans by the Congress would have gone down well with the liberal intelligentsia and India’s largest minority community as regards the hasty attempts by the present central government to introduce the Citizenship Amendment Bill. This travesty of a legislation which seeks to confer inferior status on a particular community should have been roundly condemned and public opinion should have been built up against it. Instead, the Congress Party chose to boycott the vote in the Lok Sabha instead of voting against it: yet another opportunity lost to reiterate its clear support for minorities.

Most laughable has been the denunciation of the sedition provisions in India’s criminal laws by a spokesperson of the Congress party, who has also been Law Minister in the previous UPA government. Congress governments of the past have never been chary of using this execrable provision. Sedition cases are now being lodged against students, intellectuals and journalists. Congress governments never tried to do away with this colonial anachronism. In fact, they introduced even more draconian legislation that hit at the liberty of the individual. The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA) was first passed during Congress rule and most amendments stiffening its provisions have been enacted by Congress governments. It has been used against social activists rather than terrorists and seems designed more to stifle freedom of expression and association rather than tackle terrorism. For the Congress party to shed crocodile tears when these laws are misused by police under the present ruling dispensation represents the height of hypocrisy.

Nor has there been any real commitment to administrative, judicial or police reforms on the part of the Congress party. The Reports of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission were ignored by the very Congress government that set it up. India’s governance systems are hamstrung by outmoded management structures and criminal justice (and police) reforms are not even on the horizon. No party, including the Congress, has shown any enthusiasm for the institutions of the Lokpal and Lokayukta, raising serious questions about their commitment to eradicate corruption.

There appears to be no realisation that a political party needs a base of committed voters. This requires the articulation of a clear ideology and adherence to a set of specific principles. These ideological positions also attract an adequate mass of swing voters who are not committed to any specific party but vote on the basis of the programmes that a particular party espouses. Given its past mistakes and the absence of committed cadres, it is little wonder that the Congress party has had a virtual no-show in a number of states in the last general elections. Subsequent disenchantment with the BJP may have yielded seats to the Congress in a number of states, but it should not be forgotten that it could not retain power in the state of Karnataka on its own strength. Even today, the loyalty of its legislators in Karnataka remains suspect, compelling its party managers to resort to resorts to keep the flock together.

Cobbling together a mirage of coalitions is not the route to political power for the Congress. Too many of the players in the political parties that make a great show of unity today have gone through the experiences of unhappy (and uneasy) past cohabitations. Nor have any of these parties inspired confidence in the public regarding the values they stand for. The animals in India’s Animal Farm may then decide to continue with Farmer Jones rather than opt for Napoleon if, the more things change, the more they remain the same.