3 CRUCIAL DECISIONS: 3 GREAT DISSENTS
This September has seen the
Supreme Court of India delivering several landmark decisions on burning issues
of the people, perhaps in view of the incumbent Chief Justice’s due retirement on 2 October. Out of these, three – two Constitution Bench and
one three-Judge Bench – decisions are particularly remarkable for not only their
immense impact but also for the bold, path-breaking single Judge dissents. In
the Short Notes and some footnotes to the Aadhaar
case decision [conclusions parts only] published in this issue, the profound significance of D.Y. Chandrachud
J’s dissent has been underscored. Here this editor confines to stating that at least a 9-Judge Bench ought to have looked into this
burning issue involving the privacy and security of billions of our people,
considering the ‘big brother watch’ of their domestic and personal details by
foreign agencies too. The second great dissent to be much appreciated is that
of Ms Indu Malhotra J., who being a woman herself, boldly opposed the
convoluted thinking of the majority which made encroachments into the cherished
religious/cultural traditions of a particular Hindu temple in Kerala though
this editor does not agree with her view of Sabarimalai devotees as a virtually
separate religious denomination. We stress that local cultural traditions and
some needed religious autonomy are to be respected, as exceptions to the rule of gender equality so zealously advocated by the
majority; any rule will have/ will have to have some exceptions. Now to come to
the third – more crucial and rights conscious – dissent, it is again that of
Justice Y.V. Chandrachud who called for an investigation into the serious
allegations hurled by the State against five reputed human rights activists – Varavara Rao, Gautam Naulkha, Sudha Bharadwaj et
al – by a special
investigation team to be monitored by the Apex Court itself. This editor opines
that the single point of the mala fides
motivated investigative agencies deliberately violating the strict provisions
of Section 41-B of Cr.P.C. conducting illegal searches with imported panch
witnesses is itself enough for a constitutional court to issue a writ of habeas
corpus acquitting all the five ‘suspects’; in the minimum the majority should
have been gracious enough to grant bail to all the five with liberal conditions
than consign them too seek such remedies in ‘jurisdictional courts’, which are
far off from their home places and perhaps not so responsive to humanitarian
appeals even. This editor also feels that it is a good instance for the
concerned High Court to altogether quash the absurd criminal allegations
against these ‘suspects’. §§§
No comments:
Post a Comment