Why shouldn't citizens of India 'deserve to be treated' judiciously by the judiciary?

By Pannalal Surana*
On October 1, 2019 last, the Supreme Court declined to pass interim order to maintain Status Quo about reorganization of the State of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). The petitions challenged the validity of procedure adopted by the Central government in getting legislation about deleting two clauses of the Article 370.
The petitions also challenged the reorganization of the state bifurcating it into two parts and downgrading them, as also about restrictions imposed on the people and, particularly the media, were submitted in the third week of August, but were not taken up immediately on the specious plea that the authorities should be given time to deal with the extraordinary situation.
Right to freedom of speech and expression are not only guaranteed by the Constitution but also need to be exercised as and when something wrong was being committed by the authorities and hence the Court should help the citizens , instead of the authorities in times of crisis.
A wrong can be averted by discussion while there is time to correct .But the apex court thought otherwise. All those petitions were taken up after the gap of about two months. Not commendable.
When the petitioners reminded the Supreme Court about its decision in the 1975 Additional District Magistrate, Jabalpur case, the apex court said, “There has to be a balance between personal liberty of a person and national security.”
It is surprising to see that the apex court looked at the subject matter of the petitions as personal matter and they preferred to accord more importance to the doings of the Central government as dealing with national security. How was the national security endangered?
Pakistan’s threatening language has become a routine matter. There could be no action perpetrated by any other outside party, while state of J&K was bifurcated and demoted thereby abrogating many rights of the citizens of the state.

Reminded of its decision in a 1975 case, the apex court said: There has to be a balance between personal liberty of a person and national security

The apex court should have given importance to the matter of citizens’ rights being abnegated by the authorities. One feels sorry about the apex court not doing its duty to uphold fundamental rights of a person individually as also of all the present and future generations of J&K citizens.
The apex court undeservedly obliged the authorities by giving more than six weeks time to the Central government and the J&K administration to file their affidavits. Why so many days? In fact, the apex court should have presumed that as the authorities had taken such drastic actions, they should be possessing all the material ready for drafting the affidavits .Why delay the matters? Not fair.
Many persons in the position of responsibility have lauded the performance of the three layers of UK courts in declaring the action of the Prime Minister of UK about suppressing the rights of the Parliament there as “unconstitutional" -- within 27 days.
Citizens of India do deserve to be treated judiciously by the judiciary. Let us hope that the Supreme Court of India will, in future, uphold the high traditions of protecting rights of the citizens from the repressive actions of the arrogant authorities.
---
*President, Socialist Party (India)

Comments

Girl child education: 20 major states 'score' better than Gujarat, says GoI report

By Rajiv Shah
A Government of India report, released last month, has suggested that “model” Gujarat has failed to make any progress vis-à-vis other states in ensuring that girls continue to remain enrolled after they leave primary schools. The report finds that, in the age group 14-17, Gujarat’s 71% girls are enrolled at the secondary and higher secondary level, which is worse than 20 out of 22 major states for which data have been made available.

Congress 'promises' cancellation of Adani power project: Jharkhand elections

Counterview Desk
Pointing out that people's issues take a backseat in Jharkhand's 2019 assembly elections, the state's civil rights organization, the Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha, a coalition of activists and people’s organisations, has said that political parties have largely ignored in their electoral manifestos the need to implement the fifth schedule of the Constitution in a predominantly tribal district.

Hindutva founders 'borrowed' Nazi, fascist idea of one flag, one leader, one ideology

By Shamsul Islam*
With the unleashing of the reign of terror by the RSS/BJP rulers against working-class, peasant organizations, women organizations, student movements, intellectuals, writers, poets and progressive social/political activists, India also witnessed a series of resistance programmes organized by the pro-people cultural organizations in different parts of the country. My address in some of these programmes is reproduced here...
*** Before sharing my views on the tasks of artists-writers-intellectuals in the times of fascism, let me briefly define fascism and how it is different from totalitarianism. Totalitarianism is political concept, a dictatorship of an individual, family or group which prohibits opposition in any form, and exercises an extremely high degree of control over public and private life. It is also described as authoritarianism.
Whereas fascism, while retaining all these repressive characteristics, also believes in god-ordained superiority of race, cultur…

Gujarat refusal to observe Maulana Azad's birthday as Education Day 'discriminatory'

By Our Representative
The Gujarat government decision not to celebrate the National Education Day on !monday has gone controversial. Civil society organizations have particularly wondered whether the state government is shying away from the occasion, especially against the backdrop of "deteriorating" level of education in Gujarat.

Ex-World Bank chief economist doubts spurt in India's ease of doing business rank

By Rajiv Shah
This is in continuation of my previous blog where I had quoted from a commentary which top economist Prof Kaushik Basu had written in the New York Times (NYT) a little less than a month ago, on November 6, to be exact. He recalled this article through a tweet on November 29, soon after it was made known that India's growth rate had slumped (officially!) to 4.5%.

With RSS around, does India need foreign enemy to undo its democratic-secular fabric?

By Shamsul Islam*
Many well-meaning liberal and secular political analysts are highly perturbed by sectarian policy decisions of RSS/BJP rulers led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, especially after starting his second inning. They are vocal in red-flagging lynching incidents, policies of the Modi government on Kashmir, the National Register of Citizens (NRC), the demand for 'Bharat Ratna' to Savarkar who submitted 6-7 mercy petitions to the British masters (getting remission of 40 years out of 50 years' sentence), and the murder of constitutional norms in Goa, Karnataka and now in Maharashtra.

Rushdie, Pamuk, 260 writers tell Modi: Aatish episode casts chill on public discourse

Counterview Desk
As many as 260 writers, journalists, artists, academics and activists across the world, including Salman Rushdie, British Indian novelist, Orhan Pamuk, Turkish novelist and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in literature, and Margaret Atwood, Canadian poet and novelist, have called upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi to review the decision to strip British Indian writer Aatish Taseer of his overseas Indian citizenship.

Post-Balakot, danger that events might spiral out of control is 'greater, not less'

By Tapan Bose*
The fear of war in South Asia is increasing. Tensions are escalating between India and Pakistan after the Indian defence minister's announcement in August this year that India may revoke its current commitment to only use nuclear weapons in retaliation for a nuclear attack, known as ‘no first use’. According to some experts who are watching the situation the risk of a conflict between the two countries has never been greater since they both tested nuclear weapons in 1998.

Worrying signs in BJP: Modi, Shah begin 'cold-shouldering' Gujarat CM, party chief

By RK Misra*
The political developments in neighbouring Maharashtra where a Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government assumed office has had a trickle down effect in Gujarat with both the ruling BJP and the Congress opposition going into revamp mode.

'Favouring' tribals and ignoring Adivasis? Behind coercion of India's aborigines

By Mohan Guruswamy*
Tribal people account for 8.2% of India’s population. They are spread over all of India’s States and Union Territories. Even so they can be broadly classified into three groupings. The first grouping consists of populations who predate the Indo-Aryan migrations. These are termed by many anthropologists as the Austro-Asiatic-speaking Australoid people.

Counterview

Search This Blog