On March 7, Professor G N Saibaba walked to freedom after a 10-year-long incarceration, declared by the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court as illegal on March 5. Rejecting the charge against all the accused — of aiding members of a banned organisation to wage war against the Government of India — the Court held that their detention, including that of the wheelchair-bound handicapped academic, was unsustainable in law. The judgment, based on a piercing scrutiny of the law and evidence on record, is a welcome, albeit belated, affirmation of the Constitution’s libertarian promise. We are reminded that a reflective intellectual engagement with political doctrines cannot, in itself, be a basis of criminality, consistent with the fundamental human right to free speech and thought.
That freedom came to Saibaba and others after suffering long years of a “brutal” life in unlawful custody is a painful reminder of a grave institutional deficit. The illegal custody of the accused, facilitated by an insensitive persistence by enforcers of the state to keep them — including a physically challenged academic — in prison, questions the fairness of the nation’s administrative and judicial processes. Particularly worrisome and wholly unconscionable is the Supreme Court’s earlier order in 2022 restoring Saibaba to custody after setting aside his discharge by the High Court and hearing the state’s appeal on a holiday.
The turns and twists in the case have tested the boundaries of state power and the resilience of our judicial processes to vindicate the constitutional conscience. In a resounding and reasoned rejection of the state’s case, the court held that merely downloading information about “Naxal philosophy” or even sympathising with their philosophy would not invite the rigours of the UAPA and that the prosecution had failed to establish an active role of the accused with particular incidents of violence and terrorism. The court scoffed at “vague allegations” pressed by the prosecution as the basis of criminal conviction and thereby reaffirmed the first principles of criminal jurisprudence.
However, the treatment meted out to the severely disabled professor, unable even to attend to his most private needs without assistance and his detention for 10 long years in preventive custody without conviction under anti-terrorism legislation, begs several disturbing questions. Clearly, the oppressiveness of the judicial process, which is itself the punishment, is a profoundly important, unaddressed issue impacting the quality of justice in criminal trials. The absence of even a hint of compassion in the dispensation of justice to a person physically, financially and emotionally vulnerable to the vagaries of a criminal trial questions the foundational idea of judicial justice rooted in empathy and reason.
The prosecution’s case that a person with Saibaba’s disabilities could be a threat to the security of the country and government on the basis of his ideological preferences, incredulous as it is, became the basis of a citizen’s loss of liberty to unacceptably long confinement behind prison walls. Whether this result is consistent with the republic’s sense of constitutional justice is a pertinent interrogatory. Must we suffer legal processes that yield injustice and for which there is no recompense, remains a larger question in search of a meaningful political and social response.
The long and arduous incarceration of a handicapped accused, facilitated by an oppressive criminal justice system has understandably attracted wide public attention. The loss of reputation and dignity of the accused, hope in their future and a soul-scarring sense of humiliating helplessness in the face of pervasive injustice, must awaken the public to collectively assert their right to “justice, as the first virtue of social institutions” (John Rawls).
The message of the Saibaba case is that a nation committed to the freedom of its citizens and the pursuit of human dignity cannot remain indifferent to a system in which justice is defeated and dignity is compromised. Indifference to the absence of even-handed justice questions the nation’s aspiration for a just democracy driven by credible laws and served by institutional constraints against the arbitrary exercise of state power.
Will the Saibaba case and its lessons be relegated to the margins of our memories and allowed to fade away in time or will it serve as a transformative moment in an unending “pilgrimage to justice”? This is the defining question of our times. Since the history of nations is shaped by events that unfold over time, this case should be a watershed moment towards a renaissance of our cultural heritage rooted in benign justice and empathy for the weak. We know that the fate of freedom depends upon a collective assertion of its moral force that lends it legitimacy as a constitutional right. And lest we forget, the enduring lesson of history is that the idea of freedom survives the ravages of tyranny.
The refusal of the apex court to stay the order of acquittal in this case holds out hope that the top court will reclaim its custody of the Constitution. Bound by the fetters of their remit, constitutional institutions are indeed expected to vindicate justice and be seen to be doing so.
The writer is senior advocate, Supreme Court and former Union Minister for Law and Justice. Views are personal
The judgment, is a welcome, albeit belated, affirmation of the Constitution’s libertarian promise
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12.03.2024
On March 7, Professor G N Saibaba walked to freedom after a 10-year-long incarceration, declared by the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court as illegal on March 5. Rejecting the charge against all the accused — of aiding members of a banned organisation to wage war against the Government of India — the Court held that their detention, including that of the wheelchair-bound handicapped academic, was unsustainable in law. The judgment, based on a piercing scrutiny of the law and evidence on record, is a welcome, albeit belated, affirmation of the Constitution’s libertarian promise. We are reminded that a reflective intellectual engagement with political doctrines cannot, in itself, be a basis of criminality, consistent with the fundamental human right to free speech and thought.
That freedom came to Saibaba and others after suffering long years of a “brutal” life in unlawful custody is a painful reminder of a grave institutional deficit. The illegal custody of the accused, facilitated by an insensitive persistence by enforcers of the state to keep them — including a physically challenged academic — in prison, questions the fairness of the nation’s administrative and judicial processes. Particularly worrisome and wholly unconscionable is the Supreme Court’s earlier order in 2022 restoring Saibaba to custody after setting aside his........
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