Wish for 2024: Freedom without fear

You experienced the heady feeling of freedom as you partied hard to celebrate the dawn of 2024 But Banojyotsna Lahiri switched off the lights long before the midnight hour despondent at what lay in store for her partner Umar Khalid who was among the 20 sent to jail under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act 1967 for fomenting the 2020 Delhi riotBanojyotsna smiled her way through 2021 and 2022 but hope can in a queer way begin to feel unreal Khalid appealed to the Supreme Court in June 2023 against the Delhi High Court rejecting his bail application Since then his case has been tossed from one bench to another without even the argument beginningBanojyotsnarsquos freedom is laced with sadness and anxietyMahesh Rautrsquos fate is even more tragic than Khalidrsquos An accused in the Bhima Koregaon case and in prison for five years the Bombay High Court granted him bail in September Yet he ushered in 2024 in jail for the State went in appeal against his bail to the Supreme Court where the case awaits hearing Hope the bells of freedom chime for Raut in 2024Look at the injustice meted out to nine out of the 20 who are like Khalid accused in the 2020 Delhi riot case Their bail applications were before the Delhi High Courtrsquos Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Rajnish Bhatnagar who had reserved judgment in six out of the nine cases But the proceedings came to a standstill on July 5 2023 journalist Saurav Das recently wrote when Mridul was recommended for transfer to the Manipur High Court as its chief justice which took place only in October A month or so later Bhatnagar too was transferredA new bench will now hear the cases anewDuring the argument on the bail application of Aam Aadmi Party leader Manish Sisodia the Supreme Court said the case against him in the Delhi liquor scam will fall flat in two minutes Yet bail was denied to himCan your freedom be without fear with the course of justice running so erratically so callously slowYes in case you merely shop and party are not an activist not a writer tilting against the government do not belong to a party the Bharatiya Janata Party sees as a threat do not howl against the Prime Minister on social media and refrain from joining protestsYou have the freedom to be silent You also have the freedom to shout but to do so without fearing State reprisal you must be an Arnab Goswami the TV anchor In 2020 before he became the Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud while granting bail to Goswami in a case said ldquoDeprivation of liberty for a single day is one day too manyrdquoIn 2021 he quoted the phrase Patanjali Sastry the second CJI employed to define the Supreme Courtrsquos role as that of the ldquosentinel on the qui viverdquo or sentinel on the alert against the Statersquos encroachment on fundamental rights Chandrachud explained ldquoThe phrase may have become weatherbeatenhellipbut judges must constantly remind themselves of its value through their tenures if the call of the constitutional conscience is to retain meaningrdquoThe ldquoconstitutional consciencerdquo roared for Arnab Goswami It has not for Khalid Raut and Sisodia There is a sense that all those arrayed against the BJP cannot exercise their freedom without fear for the judiciary will not intercede on their behalf as swiftly as it did for GoswamiGiven this perception can you fault Amit Chakraborty for becoming an approver in the UAPA case involving NewsClick of which he is the HR head allegedly accessing illegitimate foreign funds to threaten Indiarsquos sovereignty Paralysed from the waist below with no hope of quick judicial intervention as NewsClick is no Republic TV Chakraborty might have thought his body would not endure a prolonged spell in jailAlong with Chakraborty the State has locked up NewsClickrsquos foundereditor Prabir Purkayastha under UAPA He is 74 years old The outletrsquos bank account has been frozen overnight depriving scores of journalists of income Let us see whether the sentinel on the qui vive will stop the harassment of NewsClickAnd how soonOur freedom is tinged with fear because the Union government uses its brute majority to awe institutions into submitting to its wishes and arm itself with laws legitimising the imperilling of citizensrsquo rights An example of the last is the new criminal code which allows the police to keep a person in its custody for 90 days up from the present 15 daysThe 90 days of detention do not have to be at a stretch but can be split over a period of time This process will render bail meaningless until the 90 days of police custody are exhausted and mount pressure on the detainee to provide testimonies the police wantIndia is headed towards being a police State which will manufacture cases with abandon Indeed there cannot be a better wish for 2024 than to hope for freedom without fear which would be possible only if in the forthcoming election the people do not give a party a majority that overwhelms us allThe writer is a senior journalistSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper