Of caged parrots and snakes & ladders

Isn’t the washing machine politics also part of perpetuation of autocracy by forgiving and forgetting multi-crore scams once the accused leaders dance to the ruling party’s tunes? Is a judicial intervention warranted to end this mockery of democracy which leads to fall democratically elected governments?

As observed time and again, prolonged incarceration before being pronounced guilty of an offence should not be permitted to become punishment without trial – Supreme Court while granting bail to Aam Aadmi Party leader Manish Sisodia.

Dictatorship has many manifestations. The autocratic rule need not necessarily affect only the political opponents of the ruling dispensation. It can impact many, in fact all, aspects of our life. Aam Admi Party leader Manish Sisodia who walked out after a 17-month long incarceration in Tihar jail in the Delhi liquor payoffs scam, said it in many words.

The fact that Delhi drains have not desilted is due to the non-release of funds by the Lt Governor is only due to the dictatorship that flows from the top. Similarly, drinking water schemes have been stalled due to the same authoritarianism, he said.

On the one hand the governments and their officials do not perform their duties for which they are paid salaries from the tax payers’ money as they feel that there is nobody to question, while on the other they make use of caged parrots to launch fake cases against those who raise questions. Please note that even the ministers who control the caged parrots also draw salaries. Under dictatorship, the men in power do not respect any kind of accountability.

Picking up where Sisodia left, let us analyse such similar cases of absence of accountability that makes mockery of democracy, or whatever little of it is left. A housewife in Navi Mumbai approaches the Maharashtra government-owned power Discom with her bloated bills. The official concerned remains unconcerned (pun intended). In another case, she complains to the ward officer and the discom about illegal coaching classes being under hazardous conditions in stilt areas meant for parking of vehicles. The vehicles overflow onto the main road, creating traffic jams. She runs from pillar to post, informs the traffic police as well. No one bothers. I am sure such cases must be happening elsewhere in the country, too. I remember reading this line on the back of an auto rickshaw in Pune: Yeh Sab Aisey Hi Chalta Hai!

It has become a fashion to decry the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi whenever any questions about dictatorship arise. I did not and will not support the Emergency but let me tell this generation that the Indira Gandhi’s highhandedness led to an element of discipline. Trains and city and trunk route were punctual. No railway booking clerk dared ask for extra money at the reservation counters. In city buses, the conductor could stop overloading by passengers with just one whistle. Even in places like Delhi, people used to maintain queues at bus stops. State government employees in Secretariats, including the Writers Building of Kolkata, were reporting on time.

Of course, all these positives had died down once the Emergency excesses by Sanjay Gandhi and his cronies began to emerge and the Gandhi family had to pay a heavy political price for the dreaded Emergency. The Congress Party had no face to celebrate Indira Gandhi’s Birth Centenary in style.

Cut to the present context, the Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud has been repeatedly saying that the courts across must observe the golden rule that bail is a rule and jail is an exception. He is particularly upset that the lower courts have become hesitant to grant bails due to which every small and big case is landing up in the Supreme Court, clogging its functioning.

If one analyses the reasons for this reluctance, one questions if the lower judiciary is scared of consequences of granting bails. There are dime a dozen examples of judges who delivered verdicts that favoured the government and were given plum posts after their retirement. Is this not the result of the flow of fear or crave for favour due to authoritarianism? Thank god, the top judiciary swears by the Constitution and it is the Constitution that helps us save democracy.

Be it the attempts to rig the Chandigarh Mayoral election or the electoral bonds case, it was the Constitution that came to our rescue.

The impact of dictatorship has not spared even the sports arena. Look at the way Brij Bhushan has been shielded despite charges of molestation and sexual harassment against him and the way the medal winning women wrestlers handled by the government. A thousand-page charge-sheet has been filed against him, but the trial is yet to start. Worse still, the suspended office bearers of the Wrestling Federation, owing allegiance to him, attended the Paris Olympics as part of the official Indian delegation.

Getting back to the misuse of law to settle political scores or to silence any voice of dissent, it is about time that the nation and the judicial system functions with some accountability. For instance, News Click editor Prabir Purkayastha remained in jail for seven months before the Supreme Court held that his arrest under FCRA (for illegally taking China fund was illegal. Similarly, Kerala journalist Siddique Kappanwas in jail for 846 days after he was arrested while on his way to cover the Hathras murder case in October 2020. After a long fight, he was freed on bail by the Supreme Court. There are many such cases of lower courts treating jail as a rule and bail as an exception. Who will account for the precious time that these jailed journalists lost in the jail?

In Sisodia’s case, the ED managed to stall his bail by stating that evidence against him was being collected and that the charge sheet would soon be filed. Finally, the Supreme Court observed that with more than 450 witnesses to be examined and the hundreds of thousands of pages of documents being filed the trial is not likely to begin too soon. The High Court and trial court is playing safe in matters of bail and bail cannot be denied as a matter of punishment, the apex court said and remarked:“It is high time the courts realised that bail is a rule and jail is an exception".

The ED wanted the case to be sent back to the trial court, but the Supreme Court said nothing doing. In fact, the apex court was harsh in its remarks: relegating Sisodia to trial court and then High Court will be like playing a game of snake and ladder.

Procedures cannot be made a mistress of justice, the apex court said.

This landmark ruling must be preserved and used as reference material to beat authoritarian rulers and their caged parrots whenever they try to prolong imprisonments with political vendetta.

Isn’t the washing machine politics also part of perpetuation of autocracy by forgiving and forgetting multi-crore scams once the accused leaders dance to the ruling party’s tunes? Is a judicial intervention warranted to end this mockery of democracy which leads to fall democratically elected governments? If a public servant is punished for failing in his duty or committing blunders, can the judicial officers and investigation agencies be dealt with the yardstick? Milords, your suo motu intervention is the need of the hour.

(The columnist is a Mumbai-based author and independent media veteran, running websites and a youtube channel known for his thought-provoking messaging.)