Justice Bhambhani: Soldier of Liberty

Years ago when Anup Jairam Bhambhani began to argue a case in one of Delhirsquos district courts the judge remarked ldquoYou look like filmstar Naseeruddin Shahrdquo Bhambhanirsquos face flickered with surprise ldquoWhy no one has told you this beforerdquo the judge asked going on to hail Shah as Indiarsquos greatest actorThe judge did not know of Bhambhanirsquos abiding passion for theatre a passion no less intense than he had for physics which he studied at St Stephenrsquos College Delhi A classmate of Bhambhani says he was ldquovery organised and disciplined This certainly set him apart from all of usrdquo Yet Bhambhani changed tack after he read a book by renowned jurist Nani PalkhivalaIn a 2014 interview to the Bar amp Bench website after the Delhi High Court designated him as Senior Advocate Bhambhani disclosed why he took to law ldquoIf you do pure sciences what you learn what you know what you are doing may not be relevant to the next morningrsquos newspaper But if you are doing something like lawhellip it is all so topical and relevantrdquoEver since Bhambhani became a judge of the Delhi High Court on October 22 2018 his work has been relevant to newspapersmdashand the nation It is Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Bhambhani who contrary to expectations granted bail to Asif Iqbal Tanha Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita the three activists who were incarcerated under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act UAPAThe two judges significantly limited the application of UAPA to only cases pertaining to Indiarsquos security and shifted the onus on the state to prove prima facie a personrsquos involvement in terrorism before bail could be denied to him or her Bhambhani wrote the three orders of bail remarkable for their lucidity and logicEarlier in February 2020 as riots in Northeast Delhi raged Bhambhani was the second member of the Delhi High Court bench headed by Justice S Muralidhar that held a midnight court and ordered the lackadaisical Delhi Police to shift the injured from one hospital to anotherThree months later when Gautam Navlakha an accused in the 2018 Elgar Parishad case applied for interim bail Bhambhani fixed a date to hear the National Investigation Agency NIA in whose custody Navlakha wasDays before the hearing NIA shifted Navlakha to Mumbai prompting Bhambhani to ask the agency to explain its ldquoinexplicable frantic hurryrdquo in doing so NIA is rarely asked to account for its actions Bhambhanirsquos order was subsequently set aside and his remarks expunged by a Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra who much to the dismay of many was recently appointed the chairman of the National Human Rights CommissionLuck has obviously placed Bhambhani in the proscenium of the judicial theatre a fact he is likely to accept In the 2014 interview Bhambhani defined luck as a ldquomatter of being ready for a chancerdquo It would seem he had been preparing to take his chance for instance by evolving his own legal philosophy evident from a 2017 piece he wrote in the Outlook magazine on demonetisationBhambhanirsquos piece began with the assertion that a policy seeking to root out black money could not be faulted on the count of purpose He then asked ldquoCan a government of whichever hue impose allaround manufactured hardship upon its people to achieve what it considers necessary for the greater goodrdquo No he answered arguing that a civilised society is governed by a set of laws and rules not by ldquopersonal predilections perceptions and brainwaves of the lsquorulersrsquordquo Bhambhani concluded ldquoIt is not the bounden nationalistic duty of citizens to suffer whatever the government imposeshellip Policies cannot be lsquolivetestedrsquo on ordinary people since that is antithetical to the role of the government in a welfare state And that is what accountability is all aboutrdquoBhambhanirsquos big break was the Outlook brief he got within three years of entering the legal profession He went on to represent several media outlets earning the sobriquet of ldquomedia lawyerrdquo His other interest was criminal law His specialisations explain what he once said ldquoThere are only two things worth fighting for legally ndash free speech and personal libertyrdquoIn a 2016 article Bhambhani critiqued the Information Ministryrsquos Programme and Advertising Codes applicable to television channels for using phrases like what ldquooffends against good taste and decencyrdquo Such elastic terms erode the right to free speech even though the Supreme Court Bhambhani pointed out ldquofrowns upon a law that is so vague that those applying it are in a lsquoboundless sea of uncertaintyrsquo as to its precise meaningrdquo A law posing a threat to a guaranteed freedom has to be precise so that a person of ordinary intelligence knows what is prohibited Bhambhani concluded This argument underpins the High Court order on Tanharsquos bailThere is relief in the incestuous circle of Stephanians that Bhambhani has repaired the damage another alumnus former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi inflicted on their alma materrsquos reputation through his controversial judgements Indeed a soldier of liberty wins cheers not jeers as Gogoi must have realised on his first day in the Rajya SabhaThe writer is a senior journalist Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper